by Dan Roscoe, President of Renewall
A wind turbine is one of the largest machines most people will ever see up close. Before one can stand in a forest in Queens County, it has to be shipped, unloaded and trucked in pieces. At Mersey River Wind, that part of the process has now begun.
On October 7, the first ship carrying turbine components arrived at Port Mersey near Liverpool. On board were the parts for 10 complete wind turbines, and a second shipment is planned.
This photo gives a good sense of the immense scale, with blades and tower sections filling the deck. Each turbine arrives in separate pieces that have to be unloaded, moved inland and assembled at the project site.
Getting those pieces ashore is a job of its own. Cranes lift the blades off the ship, and specialized trailers are set up to carry them. In the photos below, you can see cranes positioned around the blades and a single blade stretched along a transport trailer. The trucks and people nearby help show just how big these components are.
Deliveries to the site are scheduled to start in late October. Each week, enough equipment for two complete turbines will make the trip inland.
While components come in at the port, crews at Mersey River Wind are getting ready to receive them. Over half of the foundations for the initial turbine build have now been poured. The aerial photo below shows one of them in its surrounding work area, tied into the project's access roads. Those roads and cleared areas give delivery trucks a way in and give crews the space they need to assemble each turbine.
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Tower assembly and preparation for turbine installation are scheduled to start alongside those deliveries. As equipment arrives, different crews will be working on different stages at the same time across the site.
About 170 people are working on site today, up from roughly 90 in June. That number is expected to pass 200 in the coming weeks as installation picks up.
The next milestone people will be able to see is the first tower sections going up on their foundations. After months of work mostly at ground level, the project is about to go vertical.
When it's complete, Mersey River Wind will have 33 turbines with a combined capacity of 148.5 megawatts. Through Renewall, that electricity will reach homes and businesses across Nova Scotia under long-term agreements that offer clean power and price stability.
Every shipment, foundation and delivery moves us closer to that point. Thank you to the crews and partners doing this work. There's a lot more to come, and we'll keep sharing it as it happens.
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Dan Roscoe is the President of Renewall Energy, a renewable energy provider, and CEO of Roswall Development, a renewable energy developer, both based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. His work is focused on building the infrastructure for a cleaner, smarter energy future across Canada and beyond.
