July 12, 2012
Massachusetts

Wind turbines en route; Mammoth trucks bound for Monroe, Florida ply the Mohawk Trail

By DIANE BRONCACCIO, Recorder staff | The Recorder | www.recorder.com 12 July 2012

Components for the 19 wind turbines of the Hoosac Wind Project have started arriving this week, and motorists on Route 2, west of Greenfield, may occasionally see the mammoth trucks carrying the 125foot-long rotor blades to Monroe and Florida.

The first of the delivery trucks arrived Tuesday, and trucks with key components of the windmills will be on the roads Tuesdays through Thursdays for the next six to eight weeks, said Iberdrola Renewables Inc. spokesman Paul Copelman.

“The delivery of components for three turbines per week is planned,” he said. “That includes one truck for each of the three rotor blades, one truck for each tower, one truck for the nacelle (which houses the gearbox and electricity generator) and one truck for each hub, which is the nose cone for the rotor.”

“I know the blades are coming on Route 2, from Texas,” he said.

He said the eight trucks for each turbine are “the most visible part” of the transport, although other equipment will be arriving on more conventionally sized trucks.

The nacelles are to come from New York and the hubs are coming from the state of Florida. He said all those components are manufactured in the U.S. by General Electric.

When completed, the Hoosac Wind Project will have nine 1.5-megawatt turbines on Crum Hill in Monroe and 10 turbines installed on Bakke Mountain in Florida. It is expected to cost around $90 million and to produce enough energy to power 9,500 homes.

The project was first proposed in 2003, but construction was held up by several legal battles over the past eight years.

The turbines will be about 340 feet high, from the base of the turbine to the highest point of the rotors, which are 250 feet in diameter.

The Hoosac Wind Project is owned by, and will be operated by, Iberdrola Renewables.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2012/07/12/wind-turbines-en-route-mammoth-trucks-bound-for-monroe-florida-ply-the-mohawk-trail/