1) Goodfellow Brothers is constructing a $500 million wind farm in Washington for RES Americas consisting of 116 wind turbines that will generate 267 megawatts of electricity. 2) Goodfellow Brothers is building roads and preparing sites for the wind towers and turbines, which involve installing three sections - the tower base, turbine, and blades. 3) Zonar equipment provides Goodfellow managers with real-time location and performance data from vehicles and equipment to help coordinate construction and address any delays, which could result in penalties, in order to complete the project on schedule.

1. www.heavyequipmentguide.ca April 2015 >> Heavy Equipment Guide 15
O
n a wind-swept ridge overlooking
the Tucannon River, a tributary of
the Snake River fed by snowpack
on the distant Blue Mountains to the east,
RES Americas Construction Inc. is leading
the construction of a $500 million wind
farm at a 20,000-acre site near Dayton,
Washington. When completed, the Tucan-
non River Wind Farm’s 116 wind turbines
will have a total generating capacity of
267 megawatts of electricity, making it
Portland General Electric’s second largest
renewable energy project. The wind farm is
expected to produce an average of around
101 megawatts, enough to power the homes
of about 84,000 residential customers.
Goodfellow Brothers is building 40
miles of new road for the project and pre-
paring each of the sites for the wind towers
and turbines. When completed, each wind
turbine tower will stand 160 feet from the
ground to the turbine motor, with three
110-foot blades.
Shipped from Europe, the massive parts
of the wind towers and turbines arrive by
boat in three sections and are loaded onto
a train and shipped to eastern Washington,
where they are loaded onto trucks to be
delivered the last hundred or so miles to
the wind farm.
“Everything must be coordinated,”
said Richard Kornmann, visual inspection
analyst for Goodfellow Brothers. “So, the
road work and site preparation must all
be completed on several tower locations
before the erection crews arrive.”
Kornmann said when the parts start to
arrive, installation of the towers must be
done by three separate teams with differ-
ent equipment. Each team is responsible
for different sections. The first team
installs the tower base. The second team
installs the turbine and the third team
installs the blades.
“Once the erection crews arrive on site,
site preparation at each tower pad must
be completed in a timely fashion so that
the crews can continue their work and
keep to their schedule,” said John Stump,
equipment department manager for Good-
fellow Brothers “The cranes used in the
installation are very expensive to operate.
Any delays on our part would result in
hefty penalties against our company and
we would lose a lot of money. There’s no
room for error.”
Kornmann said Zonar equipment
provides Goodfellow managers real-time
information that they can use to monitor
progress on the site preparations and to
deal with any equipment issues that could
potentially delay the entire project. And
since managers can generate detailed re-
ports that include engine hours plus vehicle
speed, location and condition, they can
provide RES Americas more detailed and
accurate reports. “RES Americas places a
great deal of emphasis on safety,” Korn-
Zonar helps keep $500 million
wind farm project moving
mann said. “The maximum speed limit for
all vehicles on the project site is 20 mph.
There are no exceptions. And we must
provide proof to RES Americas that we
strictly enforce that speed limit at all times.
“Since the distance from one end of
the wind farm project to the other is more
than 15 miles, it can take anywhere from
45 minutes to an hour to travel from one
tower pad to another,” he added. “That
places even greater time restrictions on our
on-site crew of 35 employees. If they run
late, they can’t speed through the project
to get to the next tower pad.”
“Having access to engine hours also
helps us in monitoring rental units and PTO
operations on trucks so that the company’s
accountants can determine and claim any
state and federal fuel tax reimbursements,”
Kornmann said.
Installation time cut in half
and connectivity improved
Recent advances made by Zonar have
contributed to a vast improvement in con-
nectivity, particularly in remote rural areas
like the Tucannon River in southeastern
Washington, Kornmann said.
“In these rural areas, we’ve seen an 80
to 90 percent improvement in reception,”
he said. “This means that I have many
fewer gaps in vehicle and vehicle inspec-
tion data.”
Recently, Goodfellow Brothers began
upgrading to the Zonar V3R telematics
platform, which features a newer genera-
tion of wireless technology than the com-
pany’s previous units. And Goodfellow
has been installing newer wire harnesses
from Zonar in its vehicles, which cuts the
installation time of the telematics system
in half from more than two hours to less
than an hour. Since the V3R and the new
wiring harnesses can connect to the on-
board diagnostic (OBD-II) ports of most
vehicles, Goodfellow Brothers managers
could have access to an even greater treas-
ure trove of data, particularly from its Ford
pickup trucks.
“There’s no question that Zonar helps
us save money through greater operating
efficiencies,” said John Stump, equip-
ment department manager for Good-
fellow Brothers. “But what’s been really
important to us is how Zonar has helped
us to more closely monitor our vehicles
and equipment so that we can remain the
contractor of choice for our customers and
our employees because we maintain a safe
and efficient work environment.”
Zonar
Telematics, GPS & Machine Control