Like a giant toy set, Sprott Power Corp. is assembling the parts for its $61-million Amherst wind project.
Thirty-six 48-metre-long turbine blades, manufactured in Spain by L&M Fibreglass Inc., are now sitting at the Ocean Terminals in Halifax, with another nine scheduled to arrive at the end of this week. Starting the middle of next month, they will be trucked to the wind farm located on a sod farm near the Tantramar Marshes.
The hubs that contain the gearboxes, generators and other electronic equipment, manufactured in India for Suzlon Energy Ltd., are slated to arrive by ship in the Port of Halifax this weekend. Towers made at the former TrentonWorks railcar plant now known as DSTN Trenton Ltd. will also be part of the project.
"It’s like one big giant Lego set," Jeff Jenner, president and chief executive officer of Sprott Power Corp. of Toronto, said Monday.
Now the weather just has to co-operate for a timeline that aims to see construction completed late this year or in early 2012.
"You’re always subject to construction risk," Jenner said. "Hopefully Nova Scotia has its summer now. It didn’t have a summer in the last two months. Hopefully it’s nice and hot and dry for the next couple of months. It makes for easier construction."
The project is slated to include 15 turbines that will, all told, have a capacity of 31.5 megawatts, enough to power 10,000 homes.
They are expected to first produce power in the first quarter of 2012.
"It’s still looking good," Jenner said of that agenda.
Sprott could face penalties if it doesn’t fulfil its contract with Nova Scotia Power by August.
"So we have a fairly comfortable timeline," he said, noting Sprott has "offsetting contractual penalties for late delivery" arranged with Suzlon, its main contractor, and Indiana-based White Construction, Inc.
The first foundation was poured on the Amherst site last week, Jenner said.
"All the roads are done and about half of the foundations are in various process of completion. Once the foundations are done, obviously the towers and the blades will begin to roll to the project, probably within 30 days."
Moving the blades is a delicate operation. Two of them may fit on a transport trailer, but the truck driver will have to avoid sharp turns and drive slowly.
"Forty-eight metres doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’s half a football field," Jenner said. "To have something that’s somewhat fragile move without bending or breaking it takes a lot of effort. . . . The reason we’re in the Port of Halifax is it’s a reasonably straight shot to get out of Halifax and on the road to Amherst."
South Korea-based Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering and the provincial government took over the Trenton plant last year with the aim of manufacturing steel towers for wind turbines.
"The towers are beginning to roll out of DSTN," Jenner said, noting that those 80-metre-tall structures will be trucked to Amherst in sections.
"Each tower, once it’s assembled, is 25 storeys high. But they come in three or four sections."
Most of the subcontractors working on the Amherst project are local, he said.
"I expect there are roughly 50 total people at the site right now," Jenner said.
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