The Blue Creek Wind Farm is a 345kV Interconnect Switchyard owned by American Electric Power. The switching station is a three breaker ring bus (designed for future expansion into a BAAH configuration) and ties into an existing AEP 345kV Convoy to East Lima transmission line and a new 345kV transmission line to the Blue Creek Wind Project.

Dashiell was awarded an EP (engineer – procure) contract for a 230 kV interconnect switchyard, 230 / 34.5 kV Collection Substation and 22 miles of single circuit 230kV transmission line in Weld County, Colorado. The interconnect switchyard ties the new wind farm into the Excel Utility system. The 22 mile transmission line connects the Cedar Creek II collector station to the interconnect switchyard. 100% of the switchyard and substation design for this wind farm was by Dashiell, including site grading, structures, foundations, conduit, grounding, lightning protection, station lighting, control building layout and specification, electrical plans and section, installation details, protection and control single line drawings, schematics and wiring, communications/SCADA, relay control panels, relay coordination settings, and equipment specifications. The transmission line was also 100% designed by Dashiell, and utilized light duty steel poles direct embedded with guyed deadends. All hardware and structure details were developed by Dashiell and approved by the owner’s engineer. Line loss calculations were performed by Dashiell to select the appropriate conductor to meet 1% line losses and have adequate corona performance at high elevations.

The Hatchet Ridge Wind Farm is a 101.2-megawatt (MW) wind farm owned by Pattern Energy Group, LP. It is located in Shasta County, California, near Mount Shasta on a ridge overlooking the town of Burney and is the first large-scale wind farm in the area. The Hatchet Ridge Collector substation consists of one 230kV, 2000A gas circuit breaker; one 230kV/34.5kV, 75/100/125 MVA power transformer; five 38kV, 1200A vacuum circuit breakers; and two 34.5kV, 10 MVAR capacitor banks. The substation has four incoming 34.5kV underground circuits from the wind farm and one outgoing 230kV overhead transmission line to the Carberry switching station. The Carberry switchyard consists of five 230kV gas circuit breakers and three incoming 230kV overhead transmission lines. One of the incoming transmission lines is from the Hatchet Ridge Wind Farm collector substation while the other two lines tie the new switching station into the PG&E power grid. Dashiell’s ability to design and construct these facilities to utility specifications proved valuable, as the Carberry switchyard will be owned and operated by PG&E once it is energized.

Dashiell provided an EPC turnkey project for a 345kV – 138kV substation as part of the Horse Hollow Generation Tie Project. The station consisted of a 2 breaker 345kV tap substation with a single incoming line, two (2) 555MVA 345kV – 138kV transformers and a 3 bay 138kV breaker and a half substation. The switchyard was designed as an interconnect point for the operation of a 1000MW wind park in Kendall County. 100% of the design for this station was by Dashiell, including site grading, structures, foundations, conduit, grounding, lightning protection, station lighting, control building layout and specification, electrical plans and section, installation details, protection and control single line drawings, schematics and wiring, communications/SCADA, relay control panels, relay coordination settings, and equipment specifications. Due to the critical nature of this project, Dashiell completed design and construction in 9 months, from notice to proceed.