Work on Invenergy’s wind farm is ready to kick into high gear
Laying on its side now, one of two lattice boom cranes that will be used to erect the wind turbines in Gratiot County, is more than twice as tall as the Breckenridge water tower.
The 390 foot, 620 ton behemoth, now located behind Invenergy’s staging area just off M-46, will be used to erect all the the turbine components, said Craig Clark, a safety specialist for Aristeo Construction.
The spot where it now lies is likely the site where the first of 133 wind towers will be installed, said Breckenridge Village Manager Jeff Ostrander.
The question most want to know is how that crane will be be moved from site to site.
“What gets everybody is that they will walk it to the next site,” Clark said.
Rather then disassembling and reassembling the huge crane and then transporting it – that’s too expensive – they will simply walk it through the fields and crossroads.
“It’s cheaper to take down the power lines and pay for crop damage than to reassemble it,” Ostrander said.
Two cranes as tall as the sky traipsing through the countryside will also be very hard to miss.
The company rents the cranes, made in Germany, by the month for a price that would buy a very nice house, Clark said.
The other one is now located off Wisner Road, he said.
Beginning July 11, the towers should start rolling into the area, said Geoff Kerr, construction manager.
From now until November, turbine parts will be moving into the Breckenridge area as the turbines are assembled at each site one by one.
The towers, once erected are taller at 250 feet than the blades. but the towers will be broken into fifty foot sections and shipped one at a time.
“They are the tallest GE towers ever constructed in the United States,” Clark said. “The tallest this side of the Mississippi.”
The blades, on the other hand, are expected to cause notice while in transport. Some have already seen blades now being shipped to the Cadillac area coming down the road and have moved out of their way.
Visitors are expected.
“The hardest part is keeping them (visitors) off the roads during construction,” Clark said of his latest experience installing about 50 turbines in Ohio.
Invenergy’s 133 turbine project is the largest in the state and is phase one of a two part plan. Two other wind turbine companies are also in the planning stages for more wind farms in the county.
Invenergy has sold the power provided by the 133 turbines to DTE.
Gratiot was chosen in part because of its access to the transmission lines.
“We had good rules, reasonable wind and a place to plug it in,” Greater Gratiot President Don Schurr had said earlier.
The turbines are expected to be all up in November, Kerr said.
They will become operational in February.
“There is a lot of anticipation and excitement to see the first one going up,” Ostrander said.