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1st of 67 wind turbines on rise in Bradford County

Sun Gazette|Cheryl R. Clarke|August 30, 2009
PennsylvaniaGeneral

High atop Armenia Mountain, near this Bradford County borough and close to the Tioga County line, the first of nearly 70 giant wind turbines is rising into the sky. According to Matt Riel, general manager of operations and maintenance with AES Armenia Mt. Wind, as of Tuesday three turbines had been erected and four others have been partially built.


TROY - High atop Armenia Mountain, near this Bradford County borough and close to the Tioga County line, the first of nearly 70 giant wind turbines is rising into the sky.

According to Matt Riel, general manager of operations and maintenance with AES Armenia Mt. Wind, as of Tuesday three turbines had been erected and four others have been partially built.

The multimillion dollar project, which started this spring, is on schedule. It is expected to be completed by the end of this year, he said. In all, 67 turbines will produce up to 100.5 megawatts, or enough energy to power 45,000 homes, he said.

But "with wind generation, that is the installed capacity of the wind farm if the wind is blowing. It is unlikely it will be blowing to …

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TROY - High atop Armenia Mountain, near this Bradford County borough and close to the Tioga County line, the first of nearly 70 giant wind turbines is rising into the sky.

According to Matt Riel, general manager of operations and maintenance with AES Armenia Mt. Wind, as of Tuesday three turbines had been erected and four others have been partially built.

The multimillion dollar project, which started this spring, is on schedule. It is expected to be completed by the end of this year, he said. In all, 67 turbines will produce up to 100.5 megawatts, or enough energy to power 45,000 homes, he said.

But "with wind generation, that is the installed capacity of the wind farm if the wind is blowing. It is unlikely it will be blowing to generate that amount of energy all the time," he added.

The turbines will be put online "in batches," Riel said.

"For instance, we've got three fully erected, but none of those have been commissioned yet. As we get to a point when we will be ready, say if we have 20, we might actually start putting power onto the grid. When another block of five or six are commissioned, those will start running," he said.

On 250-plus-foot towers, at their highest points, the tip of the blades reach more than 400 feet high.

Each blade is nearly 100 feet long, Riel said.

It takes seven trucks to bring in all the components for one turbine, Riel said. Components include the base; the nacelle, or generator housing; the hub; and three blades.

Towers are about 15 feet in diameter at their base.

"The nacelle is at the very top of the tower, where the hub is mounted once blades are attached to the hub," he said. That process that takes place on the ground.

"They then lift the rotor section up with a crane and bolt that to the nacelle," Riel said.

There are about 250 people employed on the project, Riel said, but "on any given day right now there might be 200 or so working on the site.

"Not everyone works every day or every hour of the day. We are at about the peak of our construction man load right now," he said, adding that a few women also are working on the project.

Of the 250 employees, Riel could not say exactly how many are local, only that there are "plenty."

"There are probably 15 to 20 major contractors and each of them may have up to five subcontractors," he said.

Wind farm construction requires "specialized skill sets," Riel said.

"There aren't that many major contractors who have them in the area, but the subcomponents of each work scope may have a lot of local people," he added.

Types of jobs on the project include construction of an operations and maintenance building, which has "a local contractor and all of their subcontractors," Riel said.

Well drilling was done by a local firm and electrical work is being done by O'Connell Electric, a local subcontractor, he said.

Many locals were employed for site preparation, including initial tree clearing, which was done by Pequignot, he said.

He also mentioned Hawbaker's and J.L. Watts along with Cross Excavating, which "provides a great deal of gravel."

The project also has provided "ancillary benefits" to the local area, according to Riel.

"We buy a bunch of materials, fuel and signs, rent homes and apartments from locals in the area. A lot of the folks are up here for months at a time. So in addition to local contractors there are ancillary benefits for the community from supplying parts and equipment, rent and food in local restaurants," he added.

The challenges of working in mountainous terrain with few roads has been "unique," Riel said, but in spite of it, there has been no need to widen any public roads.

"It has rough mountain roads. We have had to do some tree trimming to get branches and canopy down, but we haven't had to widen any roads," he said.

"We didn't construct any roads to get the equipment up to the mountain, but there are about 25 project roads that we built on private property for access to the turbines - about 25 miles worth of road," he added.

After the project is completed, the public roads will be restored "to at least their preconstruction condition," Riel said.

So far, he said, there has only been one "OSHA reportable" accident and that involved a contractor who broke his thumb.

In a vehicle mishap a few weeks ago, a dump truck delivering sand to the concrete batch plant coming up Mountain Avenue had to pull over to allow another truck to come down and while it was waiting the side of the road caved in and the truck rolled over down the hill, Riel said.

Fortunately, the driver wasn't seriously injured, he added.

"We also have had one episode where a base section was being delivered and it tried to take a wide turn and the back wheels of the trailer got off the road and caused the trailer to roll over," he said.

Again, the driver was not seriously injured in that accident about two weeks ago, he added.


Source:http://www.sungazette.com/pag…

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