As a leader in renewable energy, installing nearly 2 gigawatts of renewable energy to-date, Aristeo skillfully managed the construction of Heartland Wind Farm, a 72-turbine wind park producing 200 megawatts of energy.
AGC of Michigan Build Michigan Award Nominee
As part of Consumers Energy’s nearly $400 million clean energy investment in Michigan, Heartland Wind Farm joins a five-wind-park initiative to achieve net zero carbon emissions with 90 percent energy needs from clean sources. Aristeo managed the construction of the 72-turbine, 200 MW Heartland Wind Farm consisting of 72 GE towers, standing approximately 90 meters tall with three 62 meter blades at a max height of 152 meters. As a general contractor with two decades of renewable energy expertise, Aristeo expertly managed the entire project and self performed all site work, foundations and tower erection. Our team is proud to have completed this project on time across 16 months and 145,000 manhours with zero recordable incidents.
As the general contractor overseeing the project, we managed the entire process from planning to execution, including 13 subcontractors onsite to assist with engineering, electrical, fabrication/installation of resteel, crane rentals/hauling, restoration, testing and more. We also managed road improvements to ensure the remote roads and intersections would withstand increased loads. In total, we improved 38 intersections across multiple counties and created 72 access roads to turbine locations. These road improvements required 200,000 tons of stone for over 600 total truckloads of major components. Additionally, our team supported complex permitting for construction on the 65-square mile site.
Our team of laborers, operators, cement masons, carpenters, turbine technicians and more are specialized in wind park construction and have helped build dozens across the country with Aristeo. Our self perform teams completed site preparation, turbine foundations, turbine offload, tower erection, tower wiring and site restoration upon project completion. In total, we poured nearly 45,000 CY of concrete for the foundations. We also self performed the site work and foundations for the two substations onsite that tie the turbine collection lines into the main power grid. For these substations, we installed two transformer pads and containment pits, 236 drilled piers and a retention pond. These substations required over 300 CY of concrete and 450,000 SF of site leveling.
Aristeo is an experienced contractor well-equipped to tailor solutions. During site work, Aristeo discovered 11 soon-to-be turbine locations where the water table was too high – only three to five feet below grade instead of the necessary 10 feet below grade to successfully excavate and pour foundations. The unplanned dewatering of these 11 sites consisted of pumping excess water out to temporarily lower the groundwater levels to allow for foundation pouring. Dewatering impacts foundation activities and erection crews, thus complicating sequencing for the remaining activities, however our self perform teams progressed the project despite this unforeseen challenge. In total, we placed a variety of buoyant, semi-buoyant and non-buoyant foundations to accommodate the excess water onsite.
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