Mt Cass Wind Farm early works activities will be concluded within the next three months.
Earlier this year early works agreements were entered into with the three main contractors for Turbine Supply & Install, Civil and Electrical Balance of Plant to complete detailed design and provide updated offers.
To inform the civils detailed design, further geotechnical site investigations including trials for cut slope stability, and compaction of cut material for use as fill have been undertaken.
Key pre-construction activities have been completed including the erection of the permanent and temporary met masts at the western end of the wind farm site.
Long lead time electrical items have been ordered, and the contract awarded for the main wind farm Substation Transformer with design completed under that contract.
The Construction Management Plan and Environment Management Plan have been approved and issued to Hurunui District Council and ECan (Environment Canterbury).
Agreements are in place with the landowner and Hurunui District Council for the upgrade of Mt Cass Rd required for the transportation of the wind farm components. Consultation with the most affected Mt Cass Rd residents has been undertaken. Detailed design will be complete next month to allow for the early tender of these construction works.
MainPower Network Team have selected a contractor to build the 66kV Transmission Line from Waipara Substation up to Mt Cass and the associated long lead time primary equipment is in stock.
Additional resources continue to be added to the Mt Cass Wind Farm team, with a core team (see them here), complimented with several specialist consultants and contractors as we all work towards a final detailed design, contract finalisation and a planned construction start this year.
Meteorological Masts
Two 76.5m high permanent free standing Meteorological (Met) masts (PMA01 & PMA22) are required to be installed at either end of the wind farm to both verify the turbine output during commissioning and provide ongoing wind data to track the wind farm performance during its life.
The turbine output testing also requires the installation of temporary met masts (TMA01 & TMA22) on the turbine A01 & A22 locations to obtain 3 months of valid wind data to calibrate the permanent met mast instruments. These temporary masts are taken down as soon as the wind data is obtained.
The permanent met masts sit on a 7.2m square concrete foundation with 53m2 of concrete and a mass of 127 tonnes. The masts are erected in two sections with the bottom section 30m in length and the top section 40m in length giving a total weight of 10 tonnes. The masts contain instruments measuring wind speed, direction, humidity, air pressure & temperature at three positions corresponding to the turbine hub height, mid-blade, and bottom-blade tip positions.
Mt Cass Rd Walkway
For practical and public safety reasons, the Mt Cass walkway will be closed during periods of wind farm construction and turbine installation. The walkway is routinely closed during spring for lambing periods and summer during high fire risk periods.
This inconvenience should all be worth it as part of the project involves an extension of the walkway through the wind farm conservation area providing great views, better access to the limestone ecology and seeing the turbines up close.
