GIS a Wind farm developers essential tool

By Keshav Letourneau BSc, DEIA

Feb 2015

overview

• Background (education, work experience) • Work responsibilities at Eolectric • How did I use GIS

Keshav Letourneau

• BSc specialisation in environmental geography

• Graduate diploma in EIA • Project coordinator • Project manager • Certifications :

Work Responsibilities• Hired in 2006 for GIS skills • Quickly involved in wind project development

activities. – Permitting (env. & interconnection) – land lease & MOU negotiations – Met. mast positioning and installation activities – Presentations (open house, municipal council, NEC) – Identify and select consultants – Layout evaluation – High level project economic evaluation – Wind turbine evaluation & TSA evaluation and negotiation – Establish subsidiary EDR in Mexico.

• 50% GIS and 50% project development

GIS responsibilities• Work with existing database, manage

database, acquisition of data, data validation, convert data (kmz , tiff, dwg, etc.)

• Worked on maps used for various audiences and purposes.

• Public maps : – Presentations – Permitting (EA) – Notices – Interconnection requests (PCC) – PPA

GIS responsibilities cont.• Internal maps produced for: – identification of greenfield sites – factsheets – Competition analysis – Land securing analysis and progress reporting – Development agreements (JDA, DA), MOU – Environmental constraint evaluation – Evaluate wind farm layouts (evaluate turbine position

& modify position if required, re-design and evaluate access road, re-design and evaluate collector network, substation positioning, emergency response time)

Public maps

• Presentations – open houses, municipal council representations (label placement and text size larger)

• General location of project, General layout of wind farm, Constraint map. Data – 1:50k and 1:20k (NTDB – Geobase, MERN, Municipalities, Consultants.)

• Permitting – EIA, notices in public media, interconnection requests (Point Common Coupling PCC), NavCan met mast installation permit, PPA etc.

Internal maps• Identification of greenfield sites, meso scale wind data (200 m res. & 5

km res.) vs topography vs d(Tx) vs high level env. Constraints

• Wind resource evaluation, worked with meteorologists who perform QC on wind data collected from our met masts and provide us with a 25m resolution wind flow in .tiff format )

Internal maps cont.• land securing progress, cadastral data

obtained from municipality or other organisms. (polygons vs polylines)

Internal maps cont.• Wind turbine positioning (wind resource vs

topography vs environmental constraints vs economic costs)

Internal maps cont.Environmental constraint evaluation, worked with consultants and MNR data.

Types of constraints: • Bird and bat migration routes, habitat, aerial display areas (International ,Federal,

Provincial) • Telecommunication towers and signal pathways (Federal – CRTC) • Maple stands several categories (Qc - UPA) • Shadow flicker (Proponent, provincial or local) • Archeological sites (Provincial) • Sound (provincial regs. 40 db) • Buildings (QC – RCI, Ont. - GEA) • Wetlands (Convention on wetlands biodiversity) • EFE - significant valued environment (Provincial - MNR) • Roads (RCI) • Rivers (Forestry regs. RNI) • Lakes (Forestry regs. RNI) • Railroads • Transmission lines (utilities) • ATV/ski doo trails, hiking trails • Lot lines (if not in project) • Type of agricultural land

Internal maps cont.

• Initial design and evaluate access roads (topo, LIDAR data, slope %, vegetation removal (high res. Images), use of road for 800 ton capacity, crane or other vehicles. i.e. VDK 25 m wide road including ditches, 15 – 10 m driving surface.

• Design and evaluate collector network, follow mainly access roads, always consider shortest path (main consideration installation cost and electrical loss)

• Substation positioning – (topo vs water features vs location to turbines and PCC)

Site Layout map

Other activities GIS can perform

• Visual simulations • Fly by • Complex MCE (automated design of wind

farm from several inputs)

• Thank you

• Any questions?