Gateway Construction & Concrete is now building its sixth solar panel foundation, of which have occurred in 2007, in partnership with a developer of solar arrays that discovered it could not build its own foundations because of the precision required.
“They have a drilling company that was going to try to set the foundations,” says Ron Bryant, president of Gateway. “But doing that part and getting within the required tolerance was over their head. They could drill a hole, but they didn’t have the ability or the knowledge to do the layout, set it up or anything.”
Solar array foundations cannot vary more than an inch within a 1,000-foot foundation.
Gateway is working with two major providers of solar arrays – Ukiah-based Real Goods Solar and Navoto-based SPG Solar. Bryant said Gateway had tried to move into general building in recent years, but abandoned it because the projects were not as lucrative as consistent foundation work. Solar array foundations, he says, provide a strong complement to traditional foundation work.
“They’re set in drill piers by the soil engineers as to diameter, depth and whether it needs steel reinforcement or not,” Bryant says. “It differs from compression-type piers and foundations you would have on a house to hold things down in place. These are friction footings that hold it down to protect from the wind updraft, because these solar panels will act like a giant wing, so it’s got to hold it to the ground and hold it steady.”