Lifting the barriers to wind power
Thanks to the EIF’s close cooperation with financial intermediaries across Europe, and with the European Commission under the Risk Sharing Instrument, thousands of SMEs across Europe are able to start up and expand their businesses.
Lifting a piece of machinery from one location to another can be a challenge particularly when it weighs several tonnes. Imagine changing major wind turbine components weighing more than 20 tonnes on a wind turbine 100 metres above the ground! This is Liftra’s daily challenge. Founded in Denmark in 2003, Liftra ApS designs and manufactures tools and technology for heavy equipment handling and machinery servicing in the wind turbine industry. The company employs 35 engineers at its Danish headquarters in Aalborg. In 2014 Liftra needed to partially finance a self-hoisting crane to operate primarily in its service business. Under the Risk Sharing Instrument initiative, they received an EU-guaranteed EUR 1m loan from Nordea Bank, which helped to finance their first self-hoisting cranes to kickstart their now rapidly growing service business.
