DID YOU KNOW?
The Road to a
Wind Project in
Saskatchewan
Who is building it?
By Chad Eggerman and
Hasith Andrahennadi, Miller Thomson LLP
In 2015, the Government of Saskatchewan announced its target
of 50 per cent renewable energy generation capacity by
2030. SaskPower has a current wind energy generating capacity
of five per cent; by 2030, SaskPower aims to grow its wind energy
generating capacity to 30 per cent. This will require nearly 2,000
MW of new wind energy projects in Saskatchewan and provides opportunities
in road construction.
Temporary access roads and
permanent service roads
Typically, temporary access roads are created during
the construction of a project. These roads are
required to be wide and durable in order to accommodate
the heavy equipment using them
during the construction period and to facilitate
the transportation of hundreds of thousands
of tonnes of heavy equipment, such
as towers and turbines. The temporary access
roads are also required to get the specialized
cranes on site. These cranes will
raise the turbines as high as 100 metres above the ground to position
them on the tower. After the construction of the project is
complete, the temporary access roads will be reduced to permanent
service roads for the service and maintenance of the project,
or decommissioned and the lands will be restored to their
former use.1
The demand for roads in Saskatchewan
wind energy projects
In a typical wind project in Saskatchewan, construction of between
75 kilometres to 100 kilometres of temporary access and permanent
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