Wind farm specifiers blown away by Polypipe land drainage solution
A new on-shore wind farm has benefitted from Polypipe’s Landcoil agricultural drainage system.
Located between the Leicestershire villages of Willoughby-on-the-Wolds and Old Dalby, the site will generate enough energy to power as many as 5,000 homes per year courtesy of nine wind turbines constructed by leading green energy supplier Ecotricity.
More than 2,000m of Polypipe’s Landcoil agricultural drainage system was installed by Lincolnshire Drainage Company Ltd, in a variety of diameters between 80mm – 160mm, to reduce the risk of water logging in the immediate vicinity of the wind turbines.
The system incorporates ‘header’ drains installed adjacent to the site’s access roads and intercepts outfall from the existing system, diverting water into a new outfall.
To speed up the removal of excess water from the land, the Landcoil system was installed beneath 40mm of clean washed gravel to allow for quicker infiltration into the drainage system.
The Landcoil pipes were connected together with integral couplers to securely join the pipes together within the system. The three lug design allows for an easy installation, whilst removing the possibility of the coils pulling away from each other during the installation process. More than 30 Landcoil MultiJunction connectors were also used to connect the different diameters within the system together across the site.
The BSI Kitemarked system Landcoil provides an effective sub-surface drainage system to remove excess water from the soil, with the use of a perforated wall to allow water to enter the system before being carried away.
As the site is on agricultural land, this was of key consideration to minimise the risk of ground saturation during heavy periods of rainfall, allowing for better drained soils, which aid in faster cultivations, spraying and harvesting of the land to increase crop yield.