Prince Wind Farm is a large
wind farm
A wind farm or wind park, also called a wind power station or wind power plant, is a group of wind turbines in the same location used to produce electricity. Wind farms vary in size from a small number of turbines to several hundred wind turb ...
in northern Ontario. Prince Wind Farm is owned by Brookfield Power Prince Wind LP, a subsidiary of
Brookfield Power. It is located north of
Sault Ste. Marie,
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...
, mostly within the township of
Prince
A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. T ...
but also extending into
Unorganized Algoma (Dennis and Pennefather Townships), however it is visible from as far away as
Pancake Bay Provincial Park
Pancake Bay Provincial Park was established in 1968 by Ontario Parks. It is a recreation-class provincial park created to help preserve the fragile beach dune ecology. There are 325 campsites, including 160 with electricity. There are three com ...
and
Whitefish Point
Whitefish Point is a cape of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, United States, marking the entry point of Whitefish Bay. It is north of the unincorporated community of Paradise, Michigan.
Whitefish Point is known for the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum, i ...
. Prince I, 99 MW was completed in September 2006, Prince II, 90 MW, in November 2006. The average
capacity factor
The net capacity factor is the unitless ratio of actual electrical energy output over a given period of time to the theoretical maximum electrical energy output over that period. The theoretical maximum energy output of a given installation is def ...
for the first five full years of operation was 27.2%.
Description
Prince Wind Farm has a footprint of 300
hectare
The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100- metre sides (1 hm2), or 10,000 m2, and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. An acre is ...
s and the total area is over 10,000 hectares.
Main components of the Prince Wind farm:
* 126
GE SLE 1.5 MW
wind turbine
A wind turbine is a device that converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. Hundreds of thousands of large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, now generate over 650 gigawatts of power, with 60 GW added each yea ...
s
* 90
kilometers
The kilometre ( SI symbol: km; or ), spelt kilometer in American English, is a unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), equal to one thousand metres (kilo- being the SI prefix for ). It is now the measurement unit used for ex ...
of underground collector cables.
* 11.2 kilometers of above ground
transmission line
In electrical engineering, a transmission line is a specialized cable or other structure designed to conduct electromagnetic waves in a contained manner. The term applies when the conductors are long enough that the wave nature of the transmi ...
* two
electrical substations that step-up the voltage for the grid to 230 kV (Prince 1 TS, Prince 2 TS).
* One Switching Station (Heyden SS), for interconnection into the Great Lake Power Transmission system.
* 50 kilometers of access roads.
*
Meteorological towers, used for weather data acquisition. Unlike modern wind farms in Ontario, Prince Wind Farm does not provide met data to the
Independent Electricity System Operator(IESO) from its met towers.
* An operations and maintenance building located in west Sault Ste. Marie.
Prince Wind Farm has secured 30 land owner agreements with private land owners and 20 turbines are located on
crown land.
Development
Early development for Prince Wind Farm began in 2000, when Brookfield started the environmental assessment process, wind data collection and lease negotiations. Prince Wind Farm was the first wind farm that Brookfield Renewable Power developed and constructed.
Phase I construction begun in September 2005 and achieved commercial operation on September 21, 2006. Phase II begun in January 2006 and achieved commercial operation on November 19, 2006.
See also
*
List of offshore wind farms
This article lists the largest offshore wind farms that are currently operational rated by nameplate capacity. It also lists the largest offshore wind farms currently under construction, the largest proposed offshore wind farms, and offshore w ...
References
External links
Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) website
{{wind power
Wind farms in Ontario
Buildings and structures in Algoma District