Procurement News Notice |
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| PNN | 9525 |
| Work Detail | While future wind energy developments hit a wall in Clinton County this week, NextEra Energy Resources is moving at a brisk pace in DeKalb County, where the company hopes to have 97 turbines completed by the end of this year. NextEra officials provided an update to their Osborn Wind Energy Center on Thursday, September 1, including visits to several of its construction sites. The company hopes to have construction completed by the end of November or early December, while the delivery of major turbine components could be done in mid-October. “We’re right on schedule, right where we want to be,” said NextEra project manager Jeremy Ferrell last week. “We’ve got one erect turbine up, which is nice. We’re getting ready to continue that process and move on, but things are going well, going as expected.” Whether crews can stay on track depends greatly on Mother Nature. “Much like a lot of the local farmers, we’re concerned with the weather,” Ferrell said. “We’ve had a lot of rain the last couple days. We’re playing a lot of catch-up from that, but we do build some of those things into the schedule.” Construction began in the northwest corner of DeKalb County and is continuing south and east toward Osborn and Highway 36. Crews – numbering more than 350 workers – operate from a base yard just north of the small town of Amity. Once completed, the 97 turbines will send their energy to a substation using 125 miles of underground cable. Kansas City Power and Light announced in April it will be purchasing the power, which will move via the company’s newly-constructed transmission line between Sibley, Mo., and Nebraska; KCP&L teamed with the Omaha Public Power District (OPPD) to build the line. Ferrell said Thursday that KCP&L’s interest and the transmission line made the Osborn project – which lost steam after 2008 because of an unsteady market – more viable. The project in DeKalb County isn’t free from the citizen pushback seen in Clinton County. Some signs throughout the area urge residents to stand up to NextEra, and several DeKalb Countians spoke out about the project during the Clinton County Planning and Zoning hearing last Thursday, September 1. Ferrell reiterated Thursday that NextEra doesn’t have eminent domain and is working with landowners who want to be a part of the project, adding that land agents were meeting with those landowners the very same day. Ferrell said the company stays in continual contact with those residents to keep them up to date. “We’re not the company that comes in, builds something and then tries to find somebody to buy it,” he said of their connection with participating landowners. “We’re the company that comes in and we want to be here for 25, 30, 40, 50-plus years. It’s important we do maintain those relationships.” A portion of the company’s relationship with the community will come down to the roads, which have and will continue to sustain damage throughout the construction project. According to figures offered by the company on Thursday, NextEra has invested more than $4 million to upgrade county roads and bridges, and approximately 70,000 tons of material has been added to roads in the project’s boundaries. The impact was noticeable on Missouri Route J, which was rutted and wavy in some areas and recently repaired in others. To preempt some of the issues on state roads, NextEra officials said Thursday that the company gave $2.6 million to the Missouri Department of Transportation for road maintenance before turbine construction began. |
| Country | United States , Northern America |
| Industry | Construction |
| Entry Date | 15 Oct 2016 |
| Source | http://www.clintoncountyleader.com/news/article_77a60faa-75de-11e6-9fc4-cbe7cb8118fd.html |
