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Project

Hopkins Ridge Wind Farm (Washington, USA)

The Hopkins Ridge Wind Facility was Puget Sound Energy's first wind farm in Washington State. PSE owns 100 percent of the facility. Construction began in March 2005. In November 2005, turbines began generating electricity.The Hopkins Ridge wind farm in Washington state, was built by RES Americas under an Engineering, Procurement & Construction (EPC) contract for the energy utility Puget Sound Energy (PSE). It comprises 83 Vestas turbines, each rated at 1.8MW. Construction began in March 2005 and the final turbine was commissioned on 27 November, after only 8 months. Hopkins Ridge was RES Americas' third major construction project completed in 2005.

Turbines and Towers

Towers are 221 ft high at the hub, 13.2 ft wide at the base and 7.6 ft wide at the top. Towers weigh 77 tons.

Each turbine consists of 3-blades, each 129 ft long and 1.6 ft wide at the tip and 11.62 ft near the base with each blade weighing over 7 tons. The rotor (blades, hub and nose cone) weighs 41 tons.

Turbine generators are V80-1.8 MW machines manufactured by Vestas, a Danish company. Each generator produces energy at 690 volts, which is then stepped-up to 34,500 volts by an onboard transformer. The generator is housed inside a fiberglass "nacelle." The generator and nacelle together weigh 109 tons.

Total height with a blade fully extended is 351 ft and the total weight is approximately 223 tons. These are the largest wind turbine generators in Washington State.

Each tower foundation reaches a minimum depth of 25 feet and a maximum of 32 feet depending on bedrock depth, and takes an average of 100 to 260 cubic yards of concrete.

Each tower foundation requires 120 anchor bolts that span from the surface of the ground to the bottom of the foundation. A single 28 foot anchor bolt weighs approximately 150 lbs.

The turbine foundations required 52.5 miles of anchor bolts, 30,954 nuts and 11,750 cubic yards of concrete to build.

Rotors turn clockwise between 15.5-16.8 rpms, with a rotor diameter of 264 ft, larger than a wingspan of a Boeing 747.

Vital Statistics

Loction: Columbia County, WA - 15 miles northeast of Dayton

Project Area: 11,000 acres of leased land

Project Footprint: 108 acres Number of leases: 11

Capacity: 156.6 megawatts

Average annual output: about 456,000 megawatt hours, sufficient to meet the power needs of 40,000 households

Turbine Model: Vestas V 80

Turbine Capacity: 1.8 megawatts

Number of Turbines: 87

Contacts
Hopkins Ridge Headquarters
Hopkins Ridge Wind Facility-Dayton Office
307 E. Main St. Dayton, WA 99328
Email: hopkinsridge@pse.com

Documents

Vestas Wind Turbines (211 kb)