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Site C turbine runner rolling through PG tonight

In case you missed the first time, there’s another turbine runner on the move through Prince George tonight.
turbine runner 6
The convoy carrying the first 170-tonne turbine runner sits in a parking lot near Vanderhoof on Jan. 16 on its way to the Site C dam near Fort St. John. The second of six runners to be used in BC Hydro's massive hydroelectric project has arrived in Prince George and will travel through the city tonight starting at midnight. Citizen Photo by James Doyle/Local Journalism Initiative

In case you missed the first time, there’s another turbine runner on the move through Prince George tonight.

The huge piece of equipment is the second of six turbine runners needed for BC Hydro’s Site C Clean Energy Project under construction on the Peace River seven kilometres southwest of Fort St. John.

Manufactured in Brazil, the eight-metre tall, five-metre wide turbine runner weighs 170 tonnes. It’s now parked just west of the city along Highway 16 at the Beaverly chain-up area near the Petro-Canada gas bar. . Carried on a transportation unit that’s 81 metres long and eight metres wide, it requires three trucks hooked together (one pulling and two pushing).

The highway journey from Prince Rupert began early Wednesday morning.

"Runners are the heaviest unassembled single project component," said David Conway, community relations manager for BC Hydro's Site C project. "The runner is the rotating part of the turbine. So what happens is water from the reservoir enters through an intake and drops down to the penstock which is a water pipe and it goes down to the scroll casing almost like a snail shell - wide at one end narrow at the other - and it directs water to the turbine runner.

“The turbine runner spins, the water is discharged back into the river but the turbine runner is attached to the turbine shaft , which is attached to a generator, which then spins and creates the electricity. The turbine runner is like a water wheel. The movement is gravitational from falling water that gets turned into mechanical energy, which spins the turbine, which spins the generator."

The slow-moving convoy takes up two lanes of the highway and is restricted to a maximum speed of 40 kilometres per hour, slowing to 10 km/hr on bridge crossings and narrow corners. To minimize highway congestion the unit travels at night. It’s scheduled to leave its Beaverly rest stop tonight at midnight.

The first turbine runner rolled through Prince George on Jan. 17.