Lumivaara wind farm

NYAB is building the Lumivaara Wind Farm in the municipality of Hyrynsalmi in Kainuu. Eight German Nordex N163 5.7 MW wind turbines will be installed in the area, which will start producing electricity for the national grid in autumn 2023. The value of the contract is approximately EUR 12 million. The customer of the project is Energiequelle Oy, which is a company focusing on international renewable energy projects.

NYAB specialises in turnkey BoP projects and has already been involved in the construction of more than a hundred wind turbines. The Balance of Plant (BoP) construction refers to infrastructure and electrical work at a wind farm, including all construction and installation work. In the Lumivaara Wind Farm, NYAB will also build a substation and electrify the power plants after they have been set up, so this project is a Full-BoP project. This is a ST (Design and implement) contract for Skarta, so it also includes implementation planning.

The Lumivaara project started last spring with earthworks. During the summer, the foundations of the plants were laid: reinforcement, moulding and concrete casting, and many of the foundations have already been cast. Installation of the internal network began in August. According to the overall schedule, most of the works, such as foundations and the construction and foundation of the substation, will be completed this year. The earthworks will be finalised next spring, when the installation and deployment of the substation will also be carried out. Everything is on schedule.

The foundations of the Lumivaara project are exceptional and require special expertise. The foundations of turbines are usually made close to the ground, but in Hyrynsalmi they are built to be 8.6 metres high. Towers with raised foundations, the so-called hybrid towers, increase the hub height of turbines, which boosts the production capacity of the wind farm.

The Full-BoP projects are a growing part of NYAB’s service portfolio as a result of the establishment of a separate power network construction business unit in the company in the spring, which manages the construction of substations and electricity transmission network. The project development team was also expanded at the beginning of the year.

Turnkey Full-BoP deliveries are becoming more common. The customer’s operations are facilitated when the project has not been split between different contractors. When there is only one contractor and contract, communication and organisation are easy, and the contractor is responsible for most of the organisation. This saves the customer’s time and effort – and euros. Ease and cost-efficiency for the customer go hand in hand in Full-BoP projects.