US firm Burns & McDonnell will provide engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) work at two Alliant Energy solar projects in the US, with a combined power generation capacity of 200MW.
The two projects are Alliant’s 150MW Wever project in Lee County and the 50MW Creston project in Union County, both in the state of Iowa. The company’s construction subsidiary, AZCO, will complete the work, and will employ 300 people at the former project, and 120 at the latter.
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“We are excited to build on the momentum of the nine sites we successfully delivered for Alliant Energy in Wisconsin,” said Jami Stone, construction project manager at Burns & McDonnell, referring to the company’s earlier work on a 250MW portfolio in Wisconsin.
“We look forward to continuing to build on this trust-based relationship to implement additional renewable energy projects for them,” added Stone.
Alliant also has the option to add a 75MW battery energy storage system (BESS) at the Wever project, but has not reached a decision on this potential addition. The project will be built on a flood plain, and Burns & McDonnell has worked to prepare the project for what it called “500-year flood levels”, including the planned construction of an inhouse drain tile system to mitigate the impacts of potential flooding.
The project will also be connected to the local grid through a three-mile underground cable that Burns & McDonnell plans to build in the area.
The news is the latest encouraging development for the Iowa solar sector, which ranks among the lowest in the US for total installed solar capacity, with just 601MW in operation at the end of 2023, according to the US Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA). The association expects Iowa to add 1.4GW of new solar capacity over the next five years, the 31st-most among US states, and Alliant’s latest work in the state will help realise this forecast.
