Meridian Energy will soon be transporting big components of wind turbines along city roads to the Ohariu Valley for its Mill Creek wind farm.
It’s a different scenario from when the company was building its wind farm at Makara.
At that time, Meridian built a wharf and all the components for the 62 wind turbines were carried by sea. “To avoid Wellington’s busy streets,” advised Meridian. Things are different this time.
Starting next week, several large transport vehicles will travel from Wellington’s CentrePort between 10.30pm and 6.30am from Sunday through to Thursday night each week. These dates are dependent upon the shipments arriving at CentrePort and the weather.
Deliveries on Ohariu Valley Road will go on all day – from 7am till 7pm.
During these times there may be short delays on Porirua’s Mungavin Bridge as the trucks cross over with their large loads.
Smaller loads of internal turbine components will be transported by conventional road transport trucks during normal daylight hours Monday to Friday.
This work is expected to take about 13 weeks to complete (mid-June 2014). Again these dates are dependent upon the shipments arriving at CentrePort and the weather.
Meridian is committed to minimising disruption. Mill Creek hotline 0800 645 525.
The Project Mill Creek budget is around $169 million, and goods and services are being sourced locally wherever possible. The project’s lead civil engineering contractor is Higgins Construction, (Palmerston North), with earthworks done by Goodmans (Waikanae). Aggregates and other materials are also sourced locally wherever possible. Horikiwi Quarry is the main source of earthworks materials. Currently around 125 people from the region are being employed fulltime on the construction. The wind farm is being built on private land.