Mace Group

Remote renewables

Mace Group has successfully delivered a wind farm on Ascension Island in the south Atlantic, for the BBC World Service. Mace Group is providing civil engineering and project management in support of the BBC project team, and the project is part of the Group's wider international framework commission for the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

The farm consisting of five turbines will provide up to 1650 kW of power for the island grid, which provides power for the BBC’s short wave transmitting station. The wind farm is planned to save up to £450,000 a year on oil and reduce CO2 emissions by  4,500 tonnes a year.

The greatest challenge to the project is its remote location, situated as it is 1,450 miles from the nearest continental land mass (South America). With no local materials or resources, every construction item had to be shipped in. Site deliveries were made by two chartered ships which anchored off the island while materials were transferred by pontoon, lifted off at a pier head and transported by road across the island.

The first ship included all the civil plant and 1,400 tonnes of aggregate and cement. The second included the turbines and a 100 tonne crawler crane. With a limit of 25 tonnes on the ship cranes and at the pier head, the crawler crane was stripped down to a series of components and transported in pieces before being built on the island. Once the remaining four turbines have been erected it will be stripped down and shipped back to Germany.

Links

Client: BBC World Service
http://www.bbcworldservice.com

Client: UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office
http://www.fco.gov.uk/

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