It’s a year late, but Shear Wind expects to produce electricity by Dec. 31 at Glen Dhu
BAILEYS BROOK — Glen Dhu is Gaelic for dark valley, not a descriptive choice of name for the Shear Wind Inc. turbine project straddling the Pictou-Antigonish county line.
A thick, white fog often obscures the hustle atop the 250-metre-high ridge, where workers and machinery prepare bases for the project’s first turbine installation this fall.
It’s a year later than originally planned. That’s because it took about eight months for lenders to recover from the 2008 worldwide financial crisis, which meant the company couldn’t begin construction on time, Shear Wind chief operating officer Ian Tillard said Saturday.
That delay meant the company was unable to deliver electricity last December as scheduled, which resulted in a performance penalty against the company.
Investment in Shear Wind by the Spanish company Inveravante allowed construction to proceed at Glen Dhu (pronounced Doo), and it’s now on time, Tillard said.
At least 10 of the 27 turbines will begin transmitting electricity by Dec. 31. At that point, the remaining turbines will be in various stages of construction and will be hooked up to the grid by March 31.
Work began last winter with the cutting of trees and the building of 21 kilometres of roads through the wind-swept site, a long-time popular hiking and snowmobiling area that overlooks Lismore and the Northumberland Strait.
This coming week, workers will begin pouring concrete for the green-painted bases, also called cans or cones, which support the 80-metre towers. Construction is also underway on two electrical substations: a Shear Wind facility to collect the electricity from the turbines and a Nova Scotia Power unit to transmit it to the provincial grid, which runs through the site.
"That’s the main transmission line right through to Cape Breton and New Brunswick," site supervisor Grant Mason said Friday. "It was a big factor in determining where the wind farm would be."
"The substation is a vital part of this whole site."
After the concrete cures and electric modules are installed, the towers will be mounted over the bases. Beginning in mid-October, the silver-grey towers will be shipped by rail and road from Ontario and Quebec. The vanes will be trucked from the port at Sheet Harbour. The routes are determined ahead of time, following rigorous guidelines from the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal.
"There’s a lot of organizing to this," Mason said. "It’s all scheduled for when it’s needed. Once they start, they’ll all go up quickly."
The project will generate enough electricity to power 18,000 homes per year, he said.
About 40 to 80 people are employed by the project’s various contractors and sub-contractors, Mason said.
Shear Wind made a particular effort to employ local workers and to satisfy the landowners who leased the land and other community needs, he said.
There are no fences because Shear Wind leases, rather than owns, the property. However, constant security surveillance means that people can continue to visit the ridge and use its trails, Mason said.
The company is working with an Antigonish snowmobile club, a trail system, and regional tourism groups to maintain trails and, following construction, Shear Wind will install kiosks with interpretive panels describing wind generation.
The effort to include local citizens extended to naming the roads through the site. The main routes were named in honour of Don MacEachern, Harley Kellock and Gary Williams, three local men who supported the project but died before they could see it completed, Mason said. Names for the other roads were chosen by the landowners.
For safety reasons, the site also features two helicopter pads, one on each side of the county line.
Once construction is completed, Glen Dhu employees on the site will consist of security and maintenance workers.
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