Welcome to our monthly project updates. On this blog, you’ll find all Kirk Hill Wind Farm news.
August
If you follow us on our social channels or community, you’ll have seen plenty of action happening across Kirk Hill Wind Farm over the last few weeks. The process is to get all of the equipment for each turbine in the correct location before starting to construct them. So we are entering a major period of deliveries and offloading!
A lot’s happened recently, so for a quick breakdown of Kirk Hill’s progress, check out this video summarising the updates so far.
What has been delivered so far?
- Full set for Turbine 1
- Full set for Turbine 2
- Full set for Turbine 7
- Hubs, nacelles, generators for Turbine 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8
Hubs, nacelles and generators
A generator ring at Kirk Hill Wind Farm – where the electricity generation takes place
A nacelle and hub which sit at the top of the turbine tower
The hubs, nacelles and generators were the first turbine parts to arrive on site. As abnormal loads, they were transported at night with a police convoy from the Port of Ayr.
You can see the cranes offloading the hub, nacelle and generator for Turbine 5 here. And for a closer look at these parts, we manage to get up close to the generator ring, the hub and half the nacelle at Turbine 3, which you can see here.
Turbine towers
There was a late night turbine tower part delivery of parts S1-3 to Turbine 2. For an understanding into how these parts will create the tower, we talk through it here.
Turbine blades
The turbine blades have started arriving from the Port of Ayr and offloading them is an epic job. Jamie talks us through the blades arriving at Turbine 2 here. You can also have a look at the cranes offloading the blades from the lorries for Turbine 1 here.
Turbine blades basking in the sun at Kirk Hill Wind Farm
Foundations
Back to the turbine foundations, we talk through the backfilling progress at Turbine 8, the most challenging turbine of the wind farm. You’ll also be able to see the overall Kirk Hill layout to put everything into perspective – the eight turbines are much more spread out than you might think!
June and July
Kirk Hill Wind Farm had some time in the spotlight and was featured on Channel 4 News. The piece showed the Climate Change Committee’s urge to the government to support the country’s transition to net zero, with Kirk Hill featuring as a simple solution that enables people to power their homes using their own green electricity, whilst reducing their carbon footprint.
Project Manager Jamie took advantage of the beautiful weather at the Port of Ayr and showed us around the turbine blades before they got transported to site. He also gave us a quick run through the different blades for each turbine which you can catch up on here.
Meanwhile, on site the turbine foundations were well underway, with the last bit of grouting over the final part of the foundation that connects the tower to the S5s coming to an end. You can see a full update of the T8 foundation work here. So all the foundations are complete, ready for turbine deliveries.
The team working on the T8 foundation pour.
We also capped layers of stone on the surrounding roads to ensure that they are strong enough to hold heavy loads as we start transporting the equipment onsite.
In anticipation of the first parts of the turbines arriving at the end of this month, Enercon, the turbine manufacturer, started getting their teams on site to test some of their lifting equipment.
We are still looking at an early 2024 switch on date – with the first turbine commissioned in January. Due to uncertainty around energisation timings, we were unable to fix a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) price with suppliers at this point.
The Kirk Hill co-operative board has therefore agreed the PPA price should be fixed from 1st April. This will be when Kirk Hill members’ savings rate for the first year will apply. At this point, we will set the wind farm’s operating costs for the year, taking into account all revenues received for generation before that date. We would therefore expect members’ monthly savings in the first year from April to be slightly higher, resulting from any early revenue received. We will set out more details when we have more clarity over the numbers in the spring.
As a Ripple member, you’ll be able to see all of the project updates on your Community Dashboard. If you don’t already follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or TikTok, our socials are another fast and easy way to see the action onsite over the next few months.
May
May was a busy month for Kirk Hill with plenty going on onsite, as well as the arrival of all turbine parts.
Sarah visited the site and walked us through the different stages of the foundation prep. As you’ll see in the video, the foundations are in the final prepping stages and are in the process of being backfilled.
With support from Steven Parker, the ecological clerk of works for the project, you’ll also see how we are planting some compensatory broadleaf, slow growing trees around T1 where we had to remove some pine trees to make way for the turbine. These new trees will offer more biodiversity than the previous forest land.
To prepare for the arrival and construction of the turbines, we made space across the site to accommodate for the cranes and loading lorries. As we’ll connect the blades onto the hub on the ground before lifting it up onto the turbine, we need a lot of room. After construction is complete, we’ll remove some of the hard standing to make it less impactful.
The final bit of the foundation, the S5 transition pieces, were also installed. Now, we’re ready to start building the rest of the turbine.
Tracking the ships on vesselfinder
Meanwhile, we were able to watch in real time as ships containing the nacelles and hubs docked in at Port of Ayr on the 15th and 16th May. The blades then arrived slightly later on the 18th. You can see the different parts being unloaded here, with Will talking you through the different bits of equipment.
If you need a reminder of what the various components are, check out our blog.
Unloading the ships at Port or Ayr
At last, when all the turbine parts were offloaded, the weather was in our favour and we had to take this stunning photo:
Blades sunbathing after some long days travelling
As if the offloading of the turbine parts wasn’t tricky enough, we needed to then transport the 45m long blades to site. We carried out a ‘long load test drive’ from Port of Ayr to Kirk Hill. As you’ll have seen from previous videos, we have had to make extra turning space for these long loads to fit. The test drive went well so the turbine parts will be able to get to Kirk Hill safely and securely over the summer!
