Alberta’s largest wind farm comes on stream

Renewable Energy Systems Canada Inc. has completed Halkirk Wind, the largest wind project completed to date in Alberta. The 150MW project, which cost $346 million, hosts 83 Vestas V90 turbines, owned by Capital Power, a subsidiary of Edmonton-based Capital Power Corporation. Each turbine produces 1.8 MW of power. The facility occupies 15,000 acres of private land; each turbine has a footprint of about one acre, including road access.

turbine-nacelle-blades-renewable-energy-wind-Alberta-EDIWeekly
Each of 83 Vesta V90 turbines generates 1.5 MW of power. They are 124 metres high when assembled, with blades 44 metres long and a nacelle weighing 70 tonnes. The Halkirk Wind project is the largest wind farm in Alberta.

Each of the turbines, whose parts were manufactured and shipped in sections from Colorado and from Europe, consists of nine separate pieces: nacelle, hub, three blades, and four tower sections. The towers, each of which sits on a tower base weighing forty-nine tonnes, are eighty metres high. Each nacelle, or housing for the generating components, which include generator, gearbox, cooling system, electronics and transformer, weighs seventy tonnes. The blades are forty-four metres long, for a total height of 124 metres, the height of a thirty-seven storey building.

At peak construction, RES Canada had up to 360 skilled workers on site for the civil and electrical works associated with this large project. The project will provide enough renewable energy to power approximately 50,000 average Alberta homes.

Halkirk Wind’s electricity is sold into the Alberta spot market, and Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) is purchasing the Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) under a 20-year fixed-price agreement.

RES Canada has 631MW of wind and 30MW of solar built or under construction in Canada, including the 270MW South Kent Wind project, Ontario’s largest wind farm.

RES Canada is also constructing the MATL (Montana-Alberta Tie-Line), a 345 km high-voltage power line between Lethbridge, Alberta and Great Falls, Montana.

Did you miss this?

Other Popular Stories

  • Petronas to spend $16 billion to export Western Canadian LNG
  • Overheated bearings, gearboxes among causes of wind turbine fires
  • Subsidies part of the game in global aerospace industry
  • Next Hydrogen Clean Energy Production Seeks US Partners — Could Set Precedent for Future Energy Relations
  • Cars and oil pulled Canada's manufacturing down in September
  • 2018 Oil Price Forecasts
  • Bill Gates betting we can invent our way to a clean energy world
  • Government urges aerospace innovation, adoption of new technologies
  • Aerogel, 99.8 percent air — a solid so light it challenges design engineers to find an application
  • Higher efficiency solar cells within reach
  • Waste-reduction law puts responsibility for products' end-of-life costs on manufacturers
  • $25.8 million Low Carbon Innovation Fund aims to help commercialize technologies that reduce greenhouse emissions.
  • The three different types of Artificial Intelligence – ANI, AGI and ASI
  • MRO continuing its rebound after Aveos collapse
  • GE increasing its investment in fracking technology
  • Tiangong-1 Update
  • Membraneless flow battery shows great promise for cheaper energy storage
  • Canada's exports soared in June while imports fell
  • Elon Musk's Hyperloop vision racing ahead of naysayers and regulators — Boring Company receives permission to tunnel 10 miles; early tests of tube successful
  • Record car sales reported in Canada, US for October
Scroll to Top