Cable Price Invercargill hosted the Otago/Southland Branch IOQ meeting on 20 Feb 2008.
The meeting, chaired by IOQ Otago/Southland Chairman, Craig McCrorie, was well attended by many local quarry folk,with members of the NZ Executive also present. The local branch elected Lex Robb as the Conference 2009 Chairman and it is clear that their strong team will ensure this 2009 conference will be well run |
Presentation by Marc Papke:
The highlight of the evening was a fantastic slide-show presentation on the White Hills Windfarm, Mossburn. Marc Papke, who originally hailed from Dakota, was Works Infrastructure?s Project Engineer overseeing the construction of the project. Marc is now based in Te Anau. |
Key aspects of the project:
Overview:
Construction of 29 Wind Turbines, each generating 2Megawatts, total 58 Megawatts
A Meridian Energy / Works Infrastructure project
Contract period ? March 06 to February 2007.
500,000m3 of earthworks over five months
75,000 tonne of concrete and roading aggregate
Turbine foundations required 12,000m3 concrete, 3,600 tonne cement, 1000t reinforcing steel.
90 personnel employed at peak of job
Road Metals main aggregate supplier
Access:
2km access road required 35,000m3 excavation and fill
Existing track widened from 3.5m to 10m in predominantly siltstone / mudstone rock
Dumpsite created at the project were rehabilitated with dozer, topsoiled, seeded and tussock grass planted.
40,000 tonne GAP65 used in roads.
Turbine Foundations :
Towers:
Lower tower 29m height; Upper tower 39m height
The Gearbox / turbine / Generator / Transformers each weighed 70 tonne and were manufactured in DenMarc by Nacelle.
These were lifted into place using Verticonn 400 t (Liebherr 1400/2) crawler crane; weight 370 tonne and 9m width.
Installation of Turbine Blades:
Transmission Cabling:
Electrix were contracted to install cables in trenches. Some of these works was undertaken with specialist ?ditch witch? machine which trenches, feeds and lays cable, then backfills Unfortunately, this was not as reliable as the contractor had hoped, and the majority of trenches were dug using conventional digger bucket.
Power generated from the White Hills Windfarm is fed to Winton substation
Story and photos – Murray Discombe
Windfarm photos by Marc Papke