PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Located in Warren County, New Jersey, Conti provided a turnkey engineering, procurement, permitting and construction package to Constellation Energy for this project.

The project site is situated on New Jersey State Highway 57 and the solar array occupies property on two different townships, so it needed to be interconnected with Jersey Central Power & Light’s (JCP&L) and PJM’s 34.5 kV grid network.

Conti performed engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) services for this 5.99 MW DC ground mounted photovoltaic (PV) solar array. Conti entered into an EPC agreement with Constellation Energy to obtain the necessary Township Planning Board approvals, New Jersey Department of Community Affairs permits, New Jersey Department of Transportation permits, county permits and township building and electrical permits.

Over 1,800 foundation posts were installed to support 19,646 Yingli 305 W modules at a fixed tilt of 25 degrees covering more than 50 acres. The entire solar array is protected via 6,600-feet of permanent perimeter fence, and 850 trees were planted around the perimeter as an extensive landscaping buffer. The project presented several challenges, including securing permits from different authorities, perfecting the design for the bipolar solar array, procuring a pre-cut wire harnesses to speed up field install and accommodating utility company requests to provide dynamic reactive power control at the point of interconnection to ensure stable grid operations.

With the completed installation of more than 3,000-feet of medium voltage and fiber cabling, the project was put in operation in June 2016.