Fort McMurray West 500-kV Transmission Project Energized 3 Months Ahead of Schedule

Apr 7, 2019
The 500+ km transmission line from Edmonton to Fort McMurray includes two substations and involved 20 months of construction, and 4.5 years from project start to energization.

When the line was commissioned, it was considered the largest engineering, procurement and construction electric transmission project ever awarded in North America. It increases the capacity of the existing system to meet a growing demand for power in this area, and bolsters the overall reliability of the Alberta transmission network.

The line was constructed by Alberta Powerline, a Valard/ATCO partnership. It has already earned several awards. In 2017, the project received the Transmission Deal of the Year Award in 2017. In April 2018, Valard won a Top Employer of Indigenous Apprentices Award, primarily for a training program built specifically for WFMAC.

“I got to take my hat off to the integrated team under Valard, they kept their eye on the prize, some of them of 6-years,” said Valard President, Adam Budzinski, noting that there were some on the project that saw it through from beginning to the end.

The entire project was done in house by Valard, along with their partners in the Valard Group, Phasor Engineering, Domino High Voltage Supply, Northstar Sharp’s, as well as Dashiell Corp.

Budzinski said the dynamic of the project, being completed entirely in-house, was a primary factor in their ability to finish ahead of schedule. There was no conflict throughout the various points of the project’s massive scope. Everyone was pulling in the same direction. Rather than pointing fingers when issues arose, they simply worked together to find the best possible solution, and in a timely manner. Often with projects of this magnitude, relatively minor issues can escalate to point where progress is held up, Budzinski explained, “This execution model kind of avoids that,” he said, “being done under one company.”

And that also factored into Valard being awarded the tender, becuase it was completed under one company they were able to give a detailed cost breakdown, and were able to quantify a lot of their risk, he explained.

Obviously, as it was a major project for Valard there were certainly challenges, although Budzinsky said they were confident they could complete it successfully. They had experience completing all the various aspects of the project from past jobs, just never all in one project as the Fort McMurray West Transmission Project required. The Muskrat Falls Transmission Line project Valard wrapped in 2016 was a comparable experience, although Budzinski said of the Fort McMurray project, “from a full construction perspective it was different than anything we’ve done.”

“It was a world-class project,” he noted, “and it ended up being built by the home team, for a competitve price.”

“We’re proud of the fact it was built by a made in Canada solution and delivered 3-months ahead of schedule. People shouldn’t doubt we have world-class designers and engineers here in Canada.”