Wolfe Island Wind Project

The Wolfe Island Wind Project is operated and was developed by the Canadian Renewable Energy Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Canadian Hydro Developers, Inc., located directly on Wolfe Island, a few kilometres off the shore of Kingston in the Township of Frontenac, Ontario.

The plant is estimated to generate over 593,500 megawatt-hours per year of renewable energy.  Wolfe Island Wind Plant is the second largest wind farm in Canada, second to Ontario’s Melancthon Wind Farm with a capacity of 199.5 MW.

The 197.8 MW wind plant is comprised of 86 wind turbines and each turbine has a rated capacity of 2,300 kilowatts.



Each wind turbine proposed for Wolfe Island has blades that are 45 metres (148′) in length making the effect diameter of the blade rotation 90 metres (300′). The height of the wind plant mast is 80 metres (262′). The total height of the mast and the blade will be (80 + 45 metres) 125 metres (415′). As a comparison, they are four to six times the height of a typical farm silo. The rotor disc alone spans one acre.



A major component that truly sets Wolfe Island apart from other wind installations in North America is the submarine cable used to transmit power from the Island to the mainland.  It is 7.8 km long and lies on the bed of Lake Ontario in the Lower Gap between the Island and the City of Kingston.  It has a diameter of approximately 235 mm and weighs roughly 736,000 kg.  The submarine cable consists of three high voltage current-carrying copper conductors and there is also one fiber optic cable consisting of 36 individual fibers.  The cable is the world’s first 3-core XLPE submarine cable to achieve a voltage rating of 245 kV.