Frontier II Windfarm Project

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Frontier II Windfarm Project

Wed, 12/09/2020 - 13:54
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On May 14, 2019, Kay County entered into a road use agreement with Duke Energy to construct its second wind farm in Kay County. Frontier II is a 350-megawatt, 74 turbine windfarm with thirty-six miles of county gravel roads upgraded to meet heavy construction needs. A 15 acre lay down yard was prepared on the Wardlow farm at LaCann and Brake Road. Office complexes, equipment and a portable concrete batch plant was placed on this site. An average of 775 yards of concrete was poured over 65 tons of assembled rebar per tower site base. Over 60,000 yards of concrete was poured on the entire project. As the tower tubes, nacelles and blades were being assembled, seventy-two miles of an underground gathering grid was being installed to bring all turbine sites electric to a newly built sub station on the Horinek farm at LaCann and Adobe Road. Seven and a half miles of overhead transmission lines were installed from this sub station west to a point of contact to market the electric produced. Approximately 450 people have worked on this project at various phases of construction. Mostly out of town workers but whenever possible local contractors were used for fence work, welding and metal fabrication, dirt work and laborers.

On December 4, 2020, the last of the blades were installed on the Leah Barth farm to complete the 51towers in District #1. As of this writing, seven towers have been completed in District #2 with sixteen sites left to be assembled. COVID-19 has slowed the progression ofthis project since March of this year, not only the everyday health of the workers here in Kay County but world wide which slowed down production and transportation of the components needed to complete this project. Wind blades are the most needed component now to finish this project, which now may extend into early 2021. With the completion of each 598-foot turbine those flashing red lights are beginning to appear in the darkness of night.