Blades on cutting edge
Ports North wins big wind farm contract
TURBINE blades longer than Olympic swimming pools will be shipped into Cairns Port, hauled up the Gillies Range and crowned atop 30-storey high towers at the Mt Emerald wind farm.
Ports North has won the contract to bring in eight cargo vessels carrying the 57m-long blades, along with more than 450 turbine parts.
They will be stored at a $1.8 million purpose-built cargo import lay-down facility at Tingira St in Portsmith and progressively transported to Mt Emerald over 10 months.
The 10-tonne blades will be attached to 53 giant turbines at the $380 million wind farm with the first shipment arriving in October.
Energy Minister Mark Bailey said the blades – nearly 10m larger than a Boeing 767 wingspan – would cut a spectacular figure as they travelled through the region on specialised trailers.
There will be road closures but Mr Bailey said it would be timed for minimal disruption.
“The whole city will be abuzz with interest because the whole scale of it is mind-boggling and we’re going to see 53 of them being transported up the range,” he said.
Ports North chairman Russell Beer said the deal struck with Mt Emerald contractor Vestas Australian Wind Technology would “more than pay for” the construction costs.
The facility will then be used for other maritime-based work such as ship building.
“While clearly Cairns is a very major tourism port … this demonstrates our industrial capacity as well,” he said.
“We’ve also got significant work now servicing the new (Rio Tinto) Amrun mine just south of Weipa.”
The contract to prepare the Portsmith site – mostly grading, filling and compacting work – was awarded to Cairns company LDI Constructions.
The Mt Emerald wind farm is being built on 2400ha of land about 5km west of Walkamin.
Developer Ratch says its 180 megawatt station will supply on average one-third of Far North Queensland’s power needs.
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