Via NSP

Digby Neck Wind Farm Open House Event
by Robin 5. December 2010 05:27

Earlier today, several NS Power employees including myself, CEO Rob
Bennett and Project Manager Sean Brennan welcomed local residents to an open house event at the Digby Neck Wind Farm.

The Wind Farm consists of 20, 1.5 megawatt General Electric turbines that can power 10,000 homes at full capacity. A 17 km transmission line was constructed to connect the Wind Farm to the electric grid along with a 7 km on-site collector system that collects energy from the turbines and transmits it to a substation.

The Wind Farm has been of interest to local communities since it was proposed several years ago and has attracted greater attention as construction progressed, especially since turbines began rising over the last few months. With the Wind Farm’s formal commissioning coming soon, 16 of 20 turbines already producing electricity and colder weather on the horizon, it was about time to invite residents in for a tour.

Over 100 people joined us today to learn about various aspects of the Wind Farm such as how the turbines were erected and how much energy they produce. Bus tours stopped at various locations to chat and review information about the Wind Farm and provide the opportunity to engage with attendees and hear their questions, comments and concerns. It was great to have so many people spend part of their day with us at the event. I was also pleased to see representatives from Scotian WindFields – the company originally involved with the project – also come out for the event. I suppose it didn’t hurt to see the weather hold out for us as well.

To commemorate the construction of the Wind Farm, local artist Poppy Balser provided us with a wonderful watercolour painting of three of the turbines, titled Winds of Change: Leaving a Legacy of Cleaner Energy. Open house attendees were each given a post card with an image of the painting as a thank you for lending us part of their Saturday afternoon at the event. The Wind Farm watercolour is only one example of Poppy’s talent, so be sure to check out her web site at www.poppybalser.com to see other paintings in her portfolio.

We’ve uploaded some photos from today’s event to our Flickr page, so feel free to browse through the album to the right. You can also check out photos from the Nuttby Mountain open house event a few weeks ago, along with artist Janice Guinan’s rendition of that Wind Farm, titled Dawn of a New Day.

As a final note in this post, I’d like to congratulate Sean and the entire project team for working safely on an important project that will truly benefit all Nova Scotians for years to come.

Thanks for reading.

- Robin