Animals and mountains rarely influence how solar farms are built. Yet in Northern Virginia, engineers encountered a unique set of circumstances due to the land.
The Bartonsville Solar Project (a 130-megawatt solar power plant) is located at the base of the Appalachian Mountains in Frederick County, VA.
The area contains rolling hills and extensive underground rock.
It would be typical to have to excavate and grade this type of terrain before constructing a solar field. For decades, the standard solution was to create a flat surface for the solar panels.
This particular project chose a different method for building the solar farm.
A solar farm built on difficult land
The Bartonsville Solar Project is an approximately 130-MW solar generating station covering about 950 acres in Frederick County, Virginia. This solar farm will consist of approximately 315,000 solar panels installed on more than 4,000 tracker rows.
Building a project of such magnitude typically requires massive quantities of dirt to be moved.
The project area also sits within two important watersheds.
The elevation of the project area varies.
Developers wanted to preserve the landscape while building a major utility-scale solar farm. The project received the 2024 Governor’s Environmental Excellence Award for protecting natural landscape features, vegetation, and stormwater conditions during construction.
The award also raised an interesting question.
How could a solar farm larger than 120 Olympic-sized swimming pools be built without reshaping the landscape?
The majority of the landscape was left unchanged
The environmental benefits extended beyond electricity generation. An independent study showed that no more than 400,000 cubic yards of soil needed to be removed or moved.
That amount was roughly equivalent to 123 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
Avoiding that amount of earthmoving reduced impacts on topsoil and simplified stormwater management.
During construction, environmental protection measures were implemented to protect wetlands and jurisdictional waters. In contrast to other similar solar farms, this project retained many of its original characteristics.
Preserving the landscape required a construction strategy later highlighted by MYR Group.
The site is located within the Conococheague-Opequon and Shenandoah watersheds. Protecting the landscape was especially important.
Preservation of the natural contour of the land minimized the overall environmental footprint of this large-scale energy production project.
The project achieved this through a different construction approach.
The technology adapted instead
The key to making that possible was hidden within the solar tracking system itself.
The solution was not to change the landscape.
It was to change the technology.
How did solar panels “learn” to follow the hills?
The answer was allowing the solar panels to adapt to the existing terrain instead of reshaping it.
Developers selected Nevados all-terrain trackers because of their grading-reduction benefits.
According to project data, the tracker uses adaptive articulating bearings.
These allow the solar panels to follow the existing terrain rather than requiring substantial grading before construction.
Additionally, these tracker systems can accommodate large variations in slope. They remain aligned with the natural contours of the land.
These trackers were specifically developed and engineered to successfully navigate through uneven terrain. They help limit soil movement and preserve topsoil.
In practical terms, this solar farm adapted to the hills rather than forcing the hills to adapt to it.
This allowed engineers to develop a major source of renewable energy. It also preserved much of the original landscape.
Ultimately, this project shows that renewable energy development does not always require altering the landscape.
Sometimes the technology changes instead.
And in Virginia, that allowed for hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of soil to remain exactly as Mother Nature originally positioned them.
Similar design challenges are now emerging wherever renewable energy projects must adapt to complex natural landscapes.
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