Situation
Kawailoa Solar is a 49 megawatt project, using over a half million solar panels. It is currently the largest solar project in the state and provides enough power for over 14,300 Oahu homes every year. It will also help eliminate an estimated 106,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions and 223,000 barrels of imported barrels of oil annually. The site is adjacent to the state’s largest wind farm, the Kawailoa Wind project, which GBI had helped construct five years earlier.
Solution
Work for the Kawailoa Solar project included clearing and grubbing roughly 110 acres of land, moving 130,000 cubic yards of material, building four miles of rock driveways, digging one-and-a-half miles of swale, and building two substation pads.
One unique feature of the Kawailoa Solar Project was that it was GBI’s return to the site of the Kawailoa Wind project. The new solar farm fit perfectly into the existing footprint of the wind farm and already had the renewable electrical substation and grid in place.
Notable
GBI used drone-mapping technology to perform aerial topography’s of the site and get up-to-date progress of work. A repeatable flight plan for the drone was developed with a preset flight altitude and path. At the end of every workday, the drone conducted an aerial survey, to document and track the daily production, allowing us to produce a better product for our client at reduced cost.
Project Details
Awards
General Contractors Association of Hawaii
Build Hawaii, Award of Merit 2019
Specialty Construction ($3-$5M)
