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Stonewall Power Project is a 778MW gas-fired combined-cycle power plant being developed in Loudoun County, Virginia, US, by Texas-based private equity farm Panda Power Funds.<\/p><\/div>\n
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The project has been billed as a \u201cclean energy\u201d plant, fueled by natural gas with advanced emissions control technology, and using reclaimed water from the town of Leesburg to cool the boilers. The plant is being built near existing power lines, Griffin said.<\/p>\n
After the plant becomes operational in May 2017, it will supply enough power for 778,000 homes at peak capacity, said Andy Gillespie, the project manager and an engineer for Bechtel.<\/p>\n
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Photos below taken at Gilberts Corner, courtesy of Brad Brown<\/p><\/div>\n
There was little evidence that the hauls were taking place at the time, except for signs flashing warnings of impending road closures and detours, and streams of email and text alerts from the Loudoun County Sheriff\u2019s Office updating the progress of each haul.<\/p>\n
The transports started in Gainesville, where the heavy components \u2014 gas and steam turbines, boiler modules, transformers and generators \u2014 were carefully lifted off rail cars. Edwards Moving & Rigging hauled them along a 29-mile course, north on Route 15, then to Battlefield Parkway in Leesburg, across the Dulles Greenway and onto Sycolin Road.<\/p>\n
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Photos below taken at Gilberts Corner, courtesy of Brad Brown<\/p><\/div>\n
The size and weight of the components posed a significant challenge. The bulkiest were the 24 boiler modules, each weighing about 200 tons and stretching 120 feet in length \u2014 the height of a seven-story building when upright, Gillespie said. The heaviest were the generators, weighing more than 280 tons, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis took a year and a half of planning, to get all of these modules here,\u201d Gillespie said. \u201cWhen you build a project like this, our job is [to] manage risks. And we knew this was essentially a risk. Heavy haul always is.\u201d<\/p>\n
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A transformer positioned on a Goldhofer transporter. Photo by Jim Barnes<\/p><\/div>\n
During the planning phase, the project\u2019s managers coordinated with the Virginia Department of Transportation to make sure every bridge and roadway could support the loads. Traffic signals had to be raised at some intersections to make way for the boiler modules, which are 19 feet high even when horizontal, Gillespie said.<\/p>\n
For most of the hauls, a truck pulled the load on a Goldhofer transporter \u2014 a flatbed trailer with 144 wheels, 18 from front to back and eight across. Another truck pushed from behind.<\/p>\n
The project managers devised a procedure Gillespie called \u201ccrabbing\u201d to move the heaviest hauls across the bridge over Interstate 66. So that all the weight would not be on one side of the bridge, the two Goldhofers were maneuvered across the bridge, with one on each side of the center median and the girder bearing the generator crossing diagonally between them.<\/p>\n
During each haul, a VDOT crew removed street signs where necessary to make way for the behemoths, and a second crew trailing the haul replaced them, Gillespie said.<\/p>\n
In an interview on March 16, before the last two hauls, Gillespie said he was looking forward to the end of the hauling process.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a feeling of great satisfaction, because there\u2019s just so much effort,\u201d he said. \u201cSo [after] a year and a half of planning, there\u2019s nothing quite like when the plan has come together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gillespie said that he received progress reports via text messages throughout each haul, and was always relieved when the last one came, usually about 4 a.m., notifying him that the load arrived safely.<\/p>\n
Early Friday morning, he received the last text. The generator had arrived.<\/p>\n
By Jim Barnes<\/a><\/span> March 28<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The heavy hauls along Route 15 have ended.\u00a0While most of us were sleeping, hundreds of tons of heavy machinery have been rumbling slowly through Prince William and Loudoun counties and across the southern edge of Leesburg. The hauls \u2014 36 in all over the past five months \u2014 have been delivering bulky components for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":79,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":""},"categories":[4,13],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n![\"panda_power_funds_logo\"](\"http:\/\/minutes.machine.market\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/panda_power_funds_logo-300x73.jpg\"){kind=logo}
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