By the end of this week, Whitehorse residents should see four new wind turbines sitting atop Haeckel Hill, a sight they can expect to look upon for the next 20-plus years.

The last wind turbine parts are coming this week from Stewart, B.C., where all four turbines arrived by ship in late June. They have been slowly brought up on trucks to Whitehorse bit-by-bit.

The wind project is owned and operated by Eagle Hill Energy, a company that is part of the Kwanlin Dün First Nation’s development corporation, Chu Níikwän.

“By providing clean energy, this project will help offset the rising carbon emissions being caused by Yukon’s growing energy demands,” Malek Tawashy, Eagle Hill Energy’s director, told the Star.

This is the first 100-per-cent Indigenous-owned wind energy project in northern Canada, and is being built in the traditional territory of the Kwanlin Dün.

“Exemplifying First Nation self-determination, values and sustainable land stewardship for today and for future generations,” Tawashy said.

The Kwanlin Dün name for Haeckel Hill is Thay T’äw.

The turbines will be able to provide power for 650 homes, using the latest technology to continue operation during cold Yukon winters, says information from Eagle Hill Energy.

Tawashy said they had collected six years’ worth of wind data on Haeckel Hill and were able to demonstrate the potential for more energy production, especially during the winter months. Winter is the time of the highest fossil fuel consumption in the Yukon.

“The project uses the latest innovations in cold-climate technology to boost winter energy production when Yukoners need it the most,” he said.

Though the turbines will be erected by the end of this week, it will take several more months to finish off construction and hook them up to the electrical grid.

The $29-million project is funded in part by the federal government, with the Yukon Development Corp. contributing $485,000 and Kwanlin Dün’s development corporation investing $2 million.

The turbines should be spinning and generating electricity by late fall. Each will provide one mega-watt of electricity.

Over their lifetime, Tawashy, said the turbines should provide the clean energy equivalent of 40 million litres of diesel fuel.

Yukon Energy has committed to buying the power generated from the project for the next 25 years.

The site on Haeckel Hill is the same place where two wind turbines were operated by Yukon Energy for many years, one built in 1993 and the other in 2000. The first of those was removed in 2018 and the second one is being taken down now.

Those turbines consistently had issues with ice build-up. The new ones have heated, black blades and heated nacelles housing the power generators to try to keep them ice-free and operational all winter.

“As we know, the Yukon and Haeckel Hill and the region as whole can experience some of the worst rime icing conditions, probably in the world,” Tawashy said.

“So, the turbines have a few features which are aimed at reducing the down time from rime icing and therefore increasing the energy production in the winter.”

Rime is ice that builds up into the wind and occurs commonly on mountain-tops and aircraft in flight.

The turbine that was built in 2000 will be taken down as the new ones go up to take advantage of already having the necessary cranes and equipment on site.

With over 70 metres in total combined height including the towers and the blades together, they were not easy to transport to Whitehorse.

A company called Emergya Wind Technologies from the Netherlands manufactures the turbines and ships them globally.

They began their trip from Europe through a port in Belgium. From there, it’s a six-week boat trip down almost to the equator, through the Panama Canal, and north again to Canada’s most northerly ice-free port at the end of the Portland Canal in Stewart.

Then it’s a 14-hour drive to get the components to Whitehorse. It takes several oversized semi-trucks to transport all the pieces that go into one turbine.

Tawashy said two of the four turbines were already assembled by last Thursday afternoon when he spoke to the Star, and he expects the other two to be assembled by the end of this week.

This caps an eight-year planning, design and permitting process, and will now be the most significant wind energy project connected to the power grid in the Yukon.

“This project will continue to expand Yukon’s role in cold-climate renewable energy research and innovation, and with it, we also hope to inspire the next generation of renewable energy champions in communities across the Yukon and northern Canada,” Tawashy said in a statement announcing the arrival of the turbines.