The 300.5-mw Cedar Creek Wind Farm, located 12 mi. east of Grover, represents the largest wind project undertaken by the Energy Group of Mortenson Construction and one of the largest single installations of wind turbines in the United States.

Babcock & Brown and partner, British Petroleum Alternative Energy, awarded the design-build project to Mortenson in December 2006, representing the sixth wind project built by Mortenson for Babcock & Brown.

Work started immediately, only to encounter some of the most severe winter weather northeastern Colorado has ever encountered. Mortenson recovered from the winter delays and recently completed the 54 mi. of new gravel access roads and 60,000 cu yd worth of concrete foundations. Mortenson is installing the 274 wind turbines, spread over 120 sq mi. of arid agricultural/ranch land, and completing the installation of more than 1.2 million ft of 34,500-volt underground power collection cable.

Mortenson was charged with how to solve issues related to a scarce aggregate supply in the region, addressing high alkaline soils in the concrete-mix design, solving power-quality interface issues between the wind farm and the existing high voltage grid, coordinating the underground infrastructure design with the pre-existing Air Force military missile silos, proper logistics planning on a 120-sq-mi. site, and the great irony of installing wind turbines when the wind isn't blowing too hard to do that.

Once Cedar Creek is complete in December 2007, the 300.5 mw of wind power will provide enough power for the equivalent of 120,000 households and permanent employment for approximately 30 maintenance workers. For this remote community with a population of 150 people, the wind project represents many short-term and long-term business opportunities for employment and providing goods and services.

Cedar Creek Wind Farms
Grover

Silver Hard Hat Award

TIC is the general contractor for Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua’s new cement plant in Pueblo. The plant is a 2,900-short-ton-per-day cement manufacturing facility, scheduled for commissioning in fall 2007. The plant will make use of the most advanced equipment and technology available while keeping emissions to levels that meet the strict regulations set forth by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

The plant design and construction reflects an optimized selection of proven equipment flowing through a process of limestone crushing, raw materials storage, raw grinding, raw meal storage and homogenizing, kiln-feed system, pyroprocess, coal grinding, cement grinding and storage and dispatch via truck and or train.

Major equipment included a Fuller-Raw-Mill vertical roller mill with a 2,500-hp motor for the raw grinding and drying of the process. The pyroprocessing system consists of kiln, preheater, calciner, and multi-movable cross-bar cooler.

The raw feed consists of product from the raw mill and is introduced to the preheater in the gas inlet duct of the top stage cyclone. The material is preheated in the top four stages of the preheater before entering the calciner. Clinker discharge from the cooler is carried by pan conveyor to a 100,000-short-ton-storage dome. The cement grinding area consists of an OK 36-4 vertical roller mill system with a 5,000-hp motor and a ROKS 37.5 high-energy classifier. The mill has four rollers that are hydro-pneumatically pressed against the material bed on the rotating grinding table.

At maximum output, the plant can supply one million tons per year in Colorado, which uses between 2.5 and 3 million tons of cement annually. GCC’s Pueblo operation is the second-largest cement plant in Colorado.

GCC Pueblo Cement Plant
Pueblo

Click here for more Features >>