The Beauly Denny team are celebrating another significant milestone having completed all 539 tower foundations in the Scottish Hydro Electric (SHE) Transmission section.
The completion of the final foundation, located near Amulree, Crieff, has brought to an end three years of mud, sweat and toil for the 140 men who made up the Balfour Beatty foundation teams. The foundation teams poured 67,000 cubic metres of concrete, enough to fill 27 Olympic swimming pools, to cement 2,156 tower legs into position.
Alastair Brand, Beauly Denny Project Director, explained: “We are delighted to have completed all tower foundations in our area following a challenging programme of works. The foundation teams have battled through Highland winters along with working on challenging terrain including bogs and mountain sides to reach their goal, I am very impressed with their efforts which keep the project on programme to be completed in autumn 2015.”
“Engineers used several designs throughout the project including: conventional foundations which consist of large concrete bases averaging five metres deep and four metres wide, rock anchors which require cementing of steel piles into rock, steel driven tubes which involves driving large steel tubes into softer ground and finally an innovative technique which involved cementing ‘mini piles’ into rock.
“Construction of the tower foundations is arguably the most important part of the project, without a solid base the towers would not stand up to the stresses and strains caused by the Scottish weather. Audits and inspections were carried out at every stage of the foundation construction to ensure their quality, this was essential as it is very hard to inspect foundations once buried.”
The 220km Beauly Denny project is programmed to be completed in November 2015 following the construction and energisation of the 30km section linking new substations at Braco and Denny. Construction teams from SHE Transmission and Scottish Power Energy Networks will meet at the Wharry Burn, near Sheriffmuir, to connect the power line which runs through two Transmission Operator areas.
Since starting in 2010, the Beauly Denny project has contributed over £100m to the Scottish economy and has supported the full time equivalent of 1500 jobs including direct employment within local communities.