The province of Ontario has opened its first commercial wind farm. The Huron Wind facility will use five 1.8MW turbines from Vestas to generate power for 3,000 homes. The facility is located near the two Bruce nuclear reactors and is a partnership between Ontario Power Generation (OPG, Kincardine, Ontario, Canada) and British Energy (UK), a large electricity generating company and the majority partner in Bruce Power that operates the reactors.
The wind farm was approved last year, with construction starting in July 2002. The turbines arrived from Denmark in September and the first electricity was generated in November. OPG had operated a 600kW TACKE turbine at the site for five years to collect data for the wind farm. That turbine was placed in service in 1995, but was shut down in July to allow repairs to bearings in the nacelle, prior to re-installation last month.
