News
Dokie Wind Farm Phase 1 Update
October 2008 - Eagle West Cranes Inc. and its wholly owned subsidiary Stampede Crane and Rigging Inc. engaged in the start up phase of the Dokie wind turbine farm located 45 kilometers (28 miles) northwest of Chetwynd, British Columbia, Canada. Cranes were dispatched from both Calgary, Alberta and Abbotsford, British Columbia to build Phase I of this 144 Mega Watt wind turbine project.
The Dokie wind farm is located in mountainous terrain and surrounded by dense forest. Eagle West and Stampede's personnel worked diligently to successfully overcome the challenges created by this difficult terrain and extreme weather conditions with temperatures dropping as low as -27o Celsius (-17 o Fahrenheit) plus wind chill factors and large accumulations of snow and ice throughout the project site.
In total our team installed five Vestas V90 3 Mega Watt Wind Turbines with hubs up to 80 meters (262 feet) in height. Each nacelle has a weight of 80 metric tonnes (176,368 pounds) and was lifted to the top of its respective tower with a Liebherr LR 1400 Crawler crane.
Due to limited space and high angle approaches on the mountain sides, the blade installation also created its own unique challenges with each 45 meter (148 foot) blade weighing 6.55 metric tonnes (14,440 pounds) having to be individually installed using a custom designed spreader bar manufactured and provided by Vestas. The Liebherr LR 1400 Crawler crane combined with auxiliary All Terrain and Rough Terrain cranes ranging in sizes from 70 Tons up to 300 Tons were used to assemble and install these turbines.