This year the calendar winter has begun with a truly symbolic and historic event – putting into commercial operation the first stage of Kola wind power plant - the most powerful northern wind farm beyond the Arctic Circle in the world!
The first stage of the wind farm of 170 MW amounts to 84% of the design capacity of the wind farm. Commissioning of the final second stage is planned for the 1st quarter of 2023.
Today's event has become a personal victory for the entire team involved in the creation of the unique wind farm. This way was long and thorny: from the moment of development and approval of the project to putting of the first stage of the wind farm into commercial operation. But there is still a lot of work ahead for us and the launch of Kola wind farm at full power.
The project brought together people of various professions: builders, lawyers, drivers, engineers, programmers, financial specialists, security managers, environmentalists, security guards and many other great professionals. At the same time, will, perseverance and professionalism are the qualities uniting such different participants of this exciting project.
Let's imagine the scale of Kola WPP to become aware of its power and beauty.
First and foremost, the employees. Our colleagues managed to calculate that two million man-hours were spent in total to perform all the construction activities! Thanks to the efforts of hundreds of people, 57 WTGs were installed on the territory of the wind farm. Each of them, with a capacity of about 3.5 MW, consists of a tower about 84 meters in height and 200 tons in weight, a nacelle weighing about 68 tons with a gearbox and a hub, as well as three blades, 65 meters each. The total height of a WTG from the ground to the upper edge of a blade is about 150 meters, which is equal, for example, to a 40-storey building.
The wind farm occupies a total area of 257 ha, more than 60 kilometers of roads were built during the construction activities, 75 kilometers of underground cable lines and almost the same amount of the overhead power lines were installed, a substation was built, and a solid concrete foundation was made for each of the 57 WTGs.
The wind farm will be able to generate about 750 “green” GWh per year, while avoiding the release of about 600 000 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.
All WTGs are automatic. At the top of each there are small weather stations transmitting a signal about the wind velocity. The blades begin to rotate when the wind blows at the speed of minimum 3 meters per second. If the wind velocity increases to 25 meters per second, the blades get automatically blocked. The blades also turn around automatically following the direction of the wind in order to capture its maximum capacity.
The equipment of the wind farm is designed to meet the specific conditions of extremely low temperatures, as in the Russian Arctic. The blades of the wind turbines are equipped with ice detection systems allowing to detect in advance the risk of ice formation and stop automatically their rotation.
We hope that your imagination did not let you down, and you easily captured the full scale of this landmark project.
We’d like to reiterate our thanks to the entire #GoGreeners team who over the years has striven to create a miracle that is becoming a reality.