SOLAR O&M SERVICES

WWS deployed trained crews with custom commercial mowing equipment and hand tools to mow the entire site, including hundreds of acres of brush and large tumbleweeds. The tumbleweeds were entangled under solar panels and critical equipment, requiring precision cutting from the WWS team. WWS coordinated efforts with the project owner, the O&M team, the construction company and their contracted electricians to ensure all vegetation removal occurred a week ahead schedule, thus allowing the electricians to easily complete connections.

After the immediate mowing needs were mitigated, further inspection of the site suggested that more land maintenance was necessary if the solar farm wanted to prevent invasive plants like Russian Thistle from taking root. WWS worked with the site solar O&M team to create a vegetation strategy that ensured land maintenance was performed per the project’s conditional use permit. This strategy included the use of patented custom mowing equipment designed and developed by WWS. Our specialized equipment expedited mowing and allowed the O&M team to cut more acres in less time and with less manpower. Because WWS’s equipment is designed to lower manpower needs, health and safety concerns such as heat stroke and heat stress were reduced. Additionally, WWS’s custom equipment controlled the site’s overabundance of Russian Thistle far better than traditional commercial equipment.

Another key aspect of the land management strategy was the “Inspection of Watch” program – a WWS-developed methodology that leverages the mowing crew as additional sets of eyes for the solar O&M provider and results in early detection of mechanical or electrical issues in the field. WWS identifies and marks the affected components then reports this to the control room, thus expediting a solution and reducing component downtime. By cross-training our land management crews with general solar O&M skills, WWS has been able to resolve low-impact solar O&M issues while managing manpower and site maintenance responsibilities. This saves the solar O&M team a truck roll and returns the site to full production more quickly.

Vegetation maintenance is one of the most important – yet overlooked – aspects of managing a solar farm. Once unwanted plants and the organisms they host gain a foothold on your site, they become difficult to control and negatively impact solar O&M budgets. Additionally, this type of utility scale land management needs to be handled by professionals because mowing thousands of acres inside energized solar arrays – while navigating solar panels, pylons, tracking systems, electrical cables and other critical site components – is a unique skill set. Since 2015, WWS’s land management expertise has helped this site reach a large degree of success – the new equipment and efficiencies we developed have cut mowing costs by 50% and allowed the site to meet rigorous revegetation requirements. Our dependable equipment and knowledgeable staff have been paramount in protecting all employees and site assets.

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