Antarctic wind farm on track

The first stage of summer construction for the Ross Island wind farm in Antarctica has been successfully completed, with all of the project team now back in Christchurch.

Meridian Energy’s Ross Island wind farm project manager Scott Bennett, says the team accomplished everything they set out to do over the past three months.

“We have installed the specially designed ‘spider’ foundations for the three wind turbines at the Ross Island site, and installed and commissioned the power system between Scott Base and nearby US McMurdo Station to which the turbines will be connected.”

Each Antarctic ‘spider’ turbine foundation consists of eight 13-tonne pre-cast concrete foundation blocks arranged in a circle in a pit, backfilled and frozen in, so the top of the blocks are nearly flush with the ground. The eight-legged steel ‘spider’ is then bolted to the concrete blocks. The wind turbine tower will attach to the top of the steel foundation to make sure the turbine can withstand some really tough conditions, including wind gusts up to 205 km/h.

“Even during the summer months the temperature at the Ross Island site dipped below minus 20 degrees Celcius at times.

“We were well prepared, however, and the special techniques required to cope with the extreme cold worked very well,” says Scott Bennett.

The new power grid was tested by running Scott Base for two days from McMurdo Station to check connections and train operators for when the wind farm begins operation in early 2010.

The wind turbine components, as well as all other equipment needed to install the turbines, have been shipped to Antarctica and safely stored for the winter near the construction site on Ross Island.
Construction will begin again next summer (November 2009) with completion of the wind farm due for February 2010.

“Meridian is really looking forward to continuing our work with Antarctica New Zealand and the United States Antarctic Program. It’s an amazing experience to build clean power solutions for the world’s last great pristine continent,” said Scott Bennett.

Ross Island wind farm facts

The Antarctica New Zealand-Meridian Energy project is part of Antarctica New Zealand’s contribution to the joint logistics pool with the United States Antarctic Program on Ross Island, Antarctica.

The three 333kW wind turbines at the Ross Island site will reduce the amount of diesel power generation (by around 463,000 litres per year) and will link to the electrical grids of both McMurdo Station and Scott Base.

Meridian, New Zealand’s renewable electricity company, is bringing its expertise on development, construction, operation and management of wind energy to the Antarctic project.

Antarctica New Zealand and Meridian have been investigating the project since early 2005.