The Eye of The Wind
Grouse Mountain has built a 1.5 megawatt wind turbine of Leitwind LTW77-1500 type with 65 metres hub height and 76.8 metres rotor diameter at the peak of the resort. The facility, which is anticipated to eventually supply 25% of the resort’s electricity, is the first wind turbine built in North America in an extreme high altitude location. The design was recognised in the 2011 Consulting Engineers of British Columbia "Awards for Engineering Excellence".
Construction of the turbine began in September 2008 as a collaboration between Grouse Mountain and Italy’s Leitwind Technology. It was inaugurated on February 5, 2010, by BC Premier Gordon Campbell prior to the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games. Tours of the facility officially began on February 26, 2010, and the turbine was connected to BC Hydro's transmission system on September 22, 2010.
The turbine weighs more than 250 tonnes and rises 65 metres from its base to the top of the tower. Three 37.4 metre, fiberglass reinforced polyester blades sweep an area of 4,657 square metres. The support tower includes an observation deck that is accessible by elevator.
Read more about this topic: Grouse Mountain
Famous quotes containing the words eye and/or wind:
“A feeble man can see the farms that are fenced and tilled, the houses that are built. The strong man sees the possible houses and farms. His eye makes estates, as fast as the sun breeds clouds.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“O, there’s a wind a-blowing, a-blowing from the west,
And that of all the winds is the one I like the best,
For it blows at our backs, and it shakes our pennon free,
And it soon will blow us home to the old countrie.”
—William Ernest Henley (1849–1903)