Overview
Timmons Group provided an ALTA survey, preliminary electrical PV layouts, flood analysis, and preliminary civil engineering support for a utility-scale solar project approximately 1.5 miles north of Chaparral, New Mexico, in Otero County. The site was comprised of undeveloped open desert used for cattle grazing. The terrain presented challenges as the ground was covered in sand mounds that had overgrown desert brush on them. Preliminary earthwork figures were in the 800k CY range. Timmons Group also worked with the developer, NextEra Energy, as well as the utility and County personnel to prepare easements for the rerouting of the transmission’s lines and access roads in the area.
The scope of work included evaluating all existing site features, satisfy all regulatory stormwater requirements, incorporate solar PV site layout inputs, and develop an economical civil project design that was constructible and provided for a maintainable final-developed project. The work products were used for various regulatory submittals as well as proposal documents to obtain a contractor to engineer and build the solar facility. Coming online in 2023 with a nameplate capacity of 120 MWac, the facility was initially scoped at 100 MWac: a 1.59 DC/AC ratio across 388,368 410 W modules and 740 fenced acres.
