Dalswinton Energised in Three Days

Econnect Construction has ‘set blades turning’ at Airtricity’s 15-turbine Dalswinton Wind Farm near Dumfries in Scotland, on behalf of their client Carillion.

Within just three days of the connection becoming available onto Scottish Power’s grid network, Econnect energised the site, which will soon be capable of generating enough electricity to power 18,000 homes.

This is the third Airtricity site energised by Econnect Construction this year, following the energisation of Scottish neighbour Minsca and Mullananalt in the Republic of Ireland.

Design work at Dalswinton, including power systems and earthing design, was carried out by Econnect’s consulting division in the early days of the project, with construction on the wind farm commencing in June 2007.

As well as carrying out the detailed site design, Econnect Construction’s specialist team procured, installed, tested and commissioned the 33kV switchgear, wired the substation and wrote the electrical site rules.

Econnect Construction laid almost 8km of cable at the wind farm, including the 33kV collector cable network and the fibre optic field cable across the site.

Econnect Constructions Managing Director Bryan Grinham said:

"The relationship among Airtricity, Carillion and Econnect on-site at Dalswinton has been excellent and I have nothing but praise for our full time site supervisor and everyone who has worked on the project.

"We were eager to get the site energised and starting to repay its investors as soon as possible. To achieve energisation within 3 days of the grid connection becoming available is testament to the hard work that all parties have put in."

Roger Durrant, Contracts Manager for Carillion on both Airtricity’s Projects at Dalswinton and Minsca added: “The professionalism and openness of all parties has contributed to the success of this project.”

The 30MW site consisting of 15 x MM82 REPower turbines will save 60,000 tonnes of CO2 each year - the equivalent of removing 14,000 cars off the road.

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