TOWER TIMELINE
■ Late 2013: Environmental consultants from
the Eiffel Tower contact
UGE about the project.
■ January 2014: UGE
makes first site visit.
■ January-September
2014: UGE analyzes
wind direction and
power to determine
where turbine installation would deliver
maximum benefits.
■ March-October 2014:
Engineering site analysis
allows project managers
to determine structural
and electrical design.
■ October-December
2014: Structural and
electrical designs
finalized; installation
logistics planned; wind
turbines and materials
shipped to tower.
■ January-February
2015: Wind turbines
installed and operation
tests completed.
However, Mr. Reinier says there was no requirement to install the turbines in such a way to hide
them from the view of tourists—quite the opposite, actually. “We explained to the administration
that the turbines had to be seen from the ground,
because we have no reason to hide it,” he says. “
Turbines mean technical and environmental progress.”
WINDS OF CHANGE
Mr. Gromadzki, who is fluent in French, largely
oversaw the project from his New York office. To
avoid budget creep, he reviewed the project sta-
tus every two weeks at first, and then he reviewed
it weekly during the final three months—often
with other team members. After a site visit in
early 2014, which included a general meeting
with all stakeholders, Mr. Gromadzki
flew to Paris in mid-January 2015,
spending two weeks on-site to over-
see the installations.
During the initial planning phases,
Mr. Gromadzki says UGE spent hours
in phone meetings with tower and
construction officials fielding questions about how the turbines—and the installation process—would work. Because very few
wind turbines are constructed in Paris, it took
time for the stakeholders to understand and
approve the logistics.
“We had a lot of calls where we’d just talk about
the technology,” Mr. Gromadzki says. ;e project
team also needed to collaborate with safety inspectors—consultants who made sure the installation
was built to code and per the plan—plus general
contractors and subcontractors.
;ese partnerships also helped UGE hire project
talent with specialized skills. For instance, when
UGE needed to hire installation workers who could
navigate hard-to-access spaces, local contacts recommended specialized technical teams, including
some who had been part of teams that painted the
tower in the past, Mr. Gromadzki says.
Overall, careful planning allowed the team to stay
on schedule—and on budget. ;e only piece of the
project that incurred additional costs was the electrical work. Because the French electrical contractors
had no experience working with wind turbines, they
needed to bill for extra time while UGE taught them
where to tie the turbines into the Ei;el Tower’s
electrical grid. Nonetheless, the entire project stayed
within 10 percent of its original cost, Mr. Reinier says.
“It was all done really e;ciently to keep the
costs as low as possible,” Mr. Gromadzki says.
“Everything pretty much went as planned once all
materials were on-site, and many things could have
brought us to a halt—but nothing really did.”
In the end, the team delivered everything the
stakeholders required while staying within project
constraints, Mr. Reinier says.
“;e project’s execution happened exactly how it
was scheduled,” he says. PM
Some installation
workers were part
of teams that
painted the tower
in the past.
To mitigate the project’s impact
on tourists during the day,
workers hauled major equipment
up the tower only at night.
