Solar Hornshadow
Castle Dale, Utah
BEST PROJECT
Presented by BE
owner OF Shaw Renewables
Principal design company and solar engineer stellar
General Contractor Healthy renewables
Electrical contractor BE
Located on a sprawling 3,700-acre site, this 420-megawatt solar facility will generate enough clean energy to power about 70,000 Utah homes.
In addition to its sheer scale, this facility also had one of the most aggressive construction schedules this project team had ever undertaken. Meeting the schedule required seamless coordination between various contractors, suppliers and agencies. Early collaboration with the Bureau of Land Management and other permitting authorities was critical, particularly for the construction of a transmission line connecting to a distant substation, which involved complicated easement negotiations and right-of-way engineering.
With such a vast site of varying topography, the team decided to implement Nevado’s mechanical tracking system, which adapts to the region’s rolling terrain. This significantly minimized grading and land disturbance activities, preserving native soil structures and reducing environmental impacts while eliminating the need for large-scale site grading to save scheduling time.
Using a state-of-the-art plow from Germany’s Foeckersperger Group, crews installed more than 2 million feet of medium voltage cable in record time, contributing to the energization deadline and resulting in zero cable failures.
The team also completed more than 100 directional holes, ranging from 50 feet to more than 700 feet in length through the site’s difficult terrain.
