Kennards Hire in grid-scale renewables: equipment planning notes for contractors
Reviewed by Joe Ashwell
First reported on Roads & Infrastructure (AU)
30 Second Briefing
Kennards Hire is scaling its temporary works and plant offering for large renewable energy builds, supplying cranage, access equipment and high-capacity generators to grid-scale solar and wind projects alongside traditional road and civil jobs. The company is bundling traffic management, lighting towers and site power into integrated packages to support remote construction compounds and high-voltage substation works. For contractors, the shift means greater reliance on a single hire partner for critical-path equipment planning, mobilisation and maintenance across multi-year infrastructure programmes.
Technical Brief
- Kennards Hire is supplying synchronised generator sets to maintain stable temporary power during staged grid connections.
- Fleet includes large rough-terrain cranes and telehandlers sized for nacelle and tower component handling.
- Elevated work platforms with high wind-rating certification are being deployed for turbine and substation steel erection.
- For solar farms, the company is providing compaction plant, trenchers and cable drum handling equipment.
- Temporary works packages extend to site dewatering pumps and bunded fuel storage for remote compounds.
- Traffic management services integrate variable message signs, barriers and portable traffic lights for greenfield access roads.
- Kennards Hire is embedding project planners with EPC contractors to align plant availability with construction look-aheads.
- Model of bundling temporary power, access and traffic control is being replicated across multi-stage transmission upgrades.
Our Take
Kennards Hire is one of the few equipment-hire specialists that appears in our 715-item Infrastructure category, signalling that hire and temporary-works strategies are becoming more visible alongside traditional contractors in Australian project delivery.
Within the 1958 tag-matched ‘Projects’ and ‘Contract Award’ pieces, most Australian coverage centres on principal contractors, so a focus on Kennards Hire suggests asset-light plant access and rapid mobilisation are now seen as differentiators in winning and executing infrastructure work.
For Australian infrastructure operators, increased reliance on firms like Kennards Hire typically allows deferral of capex on owned fleets, but it also makes project timelines more sensitive to regional hire-fleet availability and logistics constraints during peak construction seasons.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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