Cranes are expensive yes. However they are common, and the needed horizontal reach isn't that much. (I've been in construction where we needed cranes that big - generally a house will use a larger crane than a commercial building - the house a large crane can reach the back corner and so you don't need to move it, commercial you have to move the crane anyway so you save with a cheaper one). Note that I'm not talking about tower cranes which are very big but a whole different beast that I don't know.
I don't know the details of their plan, but I wouldn't design the reach over live electrical panels myself. The obvious thing is not lift individual panels, it is to lift a whole string of panels already wired up and connected to the frame.You have somebody on each end (which is on land) to put the bolts in, connect the last wires (which are live, but nothing electricians don't work on live all the time). Even if the worst disaster happens - nobody is ever under something falling and the live wires fall to the ground without harming anyone.
The above is not difficult. Well there are a few more details that need to be figured out, but they all fit in the above plan and are obvious to anyone who has been in construction.
My AEC experience has been that cranes are expensive enough that “everyone” does whatever they can to avoid needing them and when they need one they rent one.
Because cranes are expensive crane operators are expensive and crane insurance is high (because cranes kill people), crane companies only work economically because crane companies can stay busy.
But when you rent, your schedule is dependent on every other crane customer’s schedule. You get a crane only when one is available and odds are you are not the crane company’s best customer nor the customer with the deepest pockets to pay priority service rates.
In my AEC experience cranes get “surprisingly bigger” as horizontal reach increases…levers work that way.
By “surprisingly bigger” I mean without actual experience with crane tables…my first AEC job involved cranes and prestressed concrete in a business culture where employees had been killed with cranes. And I spent time in the yard where driveable gantries were handling big chunks of concrete “overhead”…by “overhead” I mean you could wind up under twenty kips if you weren’t careful and Carl didn’t know you were there.
You seem to be trying to refute me, but everything you said exactly matches my experience and what I'm trying to say. Your project managers and design should be such that you minimize your crane costs, and when it comes you get as much done as you can. Even though a crane is expensive, when used well their portion of the cost is tiny.
There are enough canals in CA that I would expect to be an important customer of the cranes. You don't get a crane on demand, but you can always plan such that when you get the crane there is plenty of work.
And keep in mind all that reach is over live electrical panels.