We met the Wagner family at a planning commission meeting for another of our projects in southern Minnesota, and they requested our help with a unique challenge: how to turn a narrow and unproductive plot of agricultural land between Highway 169 and a wetland into a clean energy project for their businesses. Our team dug in and developed a comprehensive plan encompassing three separate solar systems with a total of eighteen dual-axis trackers that would achieve the family’s sustainability goals and financial objectives. 

This project was unquestionably the most significant engineering and permitting challenge we’ve undertaken, with approvals required from no fewer than five different authorities having jurisdiction and ten different inspectors, plus almost as many family members. Construction was equally unique, with over 800 feet of directional boring under the highway and railroad, three separate interconnections on three separate electric services, and over 43,000 pounds of steel foundation across eighteen piles driven more than 40 feet into the ground to bedrock.

In the end, we’re proud of the results and the long-term benefits these projects will bring to the Wagner family and their businesses.