A new 120-metre (393 foot) high wind turbine, with blades that extend 40 meters from the turbine’s centre, has been constructed at Glencore’s Raglan nickel mine, approximately seven kilometers from the actual mine site.
Glencore is hoping that the turbine, which is located in the Canadian province of Nunavik, will have a far-reaching impact on the mine site which runs on roughly 60 million litres of diesel every year. Like most wind turbines, this one relies on giant fan-like turbines to take energy from the wind and is then converted into electricity. The three-megawatt wind turbine will also have a 1.8-megawatt wind energy storage device, which will be the first of its kind in the Canadian Arctic. The entire pilot project has cost an estimated CAD $22 million, but the provincial and federal governments have financed more than half of this cost.
Over the next few days the structure will be hooked up to electrical cables and a test run will be conducted for 120 hours to see how well the turbine performs. Glencore can’t officially say when the turbine will be fully up and running, especially since the storage system is still being built, but delivery and installation is planned for the spring of 2015.