John Deere Industrial PowerSource™ Magazine

The Mackenzie River flows northward in the Northwest Territories into the Arctic Ocean. Each fall, before this Canadian river freezes over, Horizon Marine will transport and set up its barge facility, which will serve as an oil and gas exploration camp from October through June. Isolated by ice and remote wilderness, the 88-man barge camp will remain frozen there, and the only way in or out is by helicopter or by ice roads constructed atop the frozen river.

It’s severely cold and very remote, with normal temperatures often ranging from -17 to -40 Celsius (0 to -40 F). After long hours working outside in the cold and dark, crews retreat to the barge camp, known as the Arctic Star. It is a beacon of light and warmth, thanks to three paralleled John Deere-powered generator sets that serve as its sole source of electricity and heat.

Heat and electrical energies are treasured and valuable resources in this remote location, and Horizon Marine is making sure none of it goes to waste. That’s why the company, located in Inuvik in the Northwest Territories, looked to Frontier Power Systems of Delta, British Columbia, to design and build the three-engine paralleled gen-set unit. The system features an innovative heat-recovery system that makes use of excess heat from the engines to help heat the camp.

"It was always a vision to put heat recovery on the Arctic Star," explains Willie Moore, the company’s vice president of northern operations. "I gave Frontier Power a broad set of requirements, and they sourced the heat-recovery equipment, engineered the drawings, and performed the installation and start up. They actually bent over backwards to get the gen-sets delivered in a timely fashion."