Alliant Energy provides Wautoma Solar Project update

The 99-megawatt Wau-toma Solar Project located in the Town of Dakota of Waushara County. The project is part of Alliant Energy’s Clean Energy Blueprint, a strategic roadmap to cost-effectively accelerate the transition to renewable energy and reduce carbon emissions. Once complete, the project will positively impact the environment and generate enough energy to power around 25,000 homes.

Civil sitework is underway at the Wautoma Solar Project. This includes setting up the laydown area, building roads, substation area grading and site grading to ensure the solar panels are at the proper angle to generate energy.

During this time, crews will begin to install an eight-foot deer fence around the entirety of the project site to keep animals away from wiring.

Crews have already begun to sow native plant growth and pollinator habitat. They seed grasses and plants throughout the project area. Grasses grow between solar panel arrays. Pollinator habitat grows on the outskirts of the project area. The grasses are planted early to allow them to take root and help provide stability for the dirt.

Once the civil sitework is complete, they will begin to install the piles. These metal posts anchor the solar arrays to the ground and support the tracking system that allows the panels to follow the sun daily.

With construction under-way, here is a preview of what you might see in the coming weeks and months. Bulldozers, scrapers and graders will do much of the work in the first few months. Then, pile drivers will drive the 15-foot piles into the ground. Most of the work after that will involve smaller machinery, including forklifts to transport deliveries of solar panels and skid steers for other minor work.

Full-time water trucks are on-site to mitigate dust blowing in the area, and crews use a silt fence and filter strips around the project site to contain dust when possible. Traffic will likely increase on the roads surrounding the solar project. There will be 100 workers on-site any given day and regular deliveries of project materials. The crew has documented preconstruction road conditions and will repair any damage construction activities cause. Crews will construct the project substation in parallel with the solar arrays.

Alliant Energy expects the Wautoma Solar Project to be operational next summer.

Alliant Energy will share additional updates, photos and details for the Wautoma Solar Project throughout the construction process online at alliantenergy.com/wautomasolar.