Complete civil packages for battery energy storage near Travis, NY: pad subgrade and mass grading, foundation excavation, access and crane pads, collection trenching, ductbank, SWPPP, and substation civil.
Backwell contracts complete civil site work packages for battery energy storage developers and EPCs building near Travis in Richmond County, New York. One contract covers site preparation through final stabilization, with Backwell field leadership on site.
Travis sits on the west shore of Staten Island between the West Shore Expressway and the Arthur Kill, in Community District 2 and adjacent to the Freshkills Park site. Hecate Grid's Swiftsure BESS was proposed on roughly eight acres on the north side of Victory Boulevard south of the Travis Avenue intersection and within a mile of Con Edison's Fresh Kills Substation, at 650 MW, and was terminated by summer 2026 after the developer missed a decommissioning plan deadline. Residents had raised safety and notice concerns since 2023. The ground is low west shore terrain with marsh deposits, fill and a water table near grade.
Publicly reported battery energy storage in and around Richmond County:
Project details come from public filings and reporting and are listed to show where the work is. Backwell is not affiliated with these projects or their developers.
Staten Island has the most varied ground in the city. The Serpentine Ridge through Todt Hill is the only serpentinite bedrock exposure in New York State and forms the island's spine and highest point, with shallow rock and steep grades along it. West and south of that ridge the island is Atlantic Coastal Plain, with Cretaceous clays and sands beneath glacial deposits and outwash sands of the Riverhead and Plymouth families on the plain. The west shore along the Arthur Kill is low, poorly drained ground of tidal marsh, made land and industrial fill, including the former Fresh Kills landfill. Artifactual fill series Laguardia, Ebbets, Secaucus and Breeze appear here as they do citywide. Groundwater is at or near grade across the west shore marshes and deep along the ridge. Coastal plain clays can be plastic and low strength where they are encountered.
Site selection on Staten Island decides the civil approach. On or near the Serpentine Ridge, shallow rock means blasting or hammering for footings, duct banks and grounding, and grading that works with the slope instead of against it. On the west shore, the problem inverts: soft marsh deposits and deep uncontrolled fill over former tidal ground mean settlement governs, so enclosure pads commonly need over excavation and replacement, surcharge or a structural mat, and geotechnical investigation should precede any pad layout. Landfill and industrial fill areas require characterized excavation and manifested export, gas and vapor consideration in design, and protection of existing caps. The water table sits near grade across the marshes, so dewatering with treatment and discharge controls is standard for below grade work. Where coastal plain clays surface, plan haul roads and crane pads for low bearing and wet weather shutdown.
Full detail on the Richmond County market is on the Richmond County battery storage civil page.
Concrete is placed by our subcontractor partners under the same contract, so the foundations follow the earthwork without a separate award. We price the civil package as one scope under one contract, which gives the EPC a single point of responsibility for the civil critical path instead of managing separate clearing, earthwork, and underground subcontracts.
Battery storage in New York is governed by Section 1207 of the 2025 Fire Code of New York State, which the State Fire Prevention and Building Code Council adopted on July 25, 2025 with an effective date of December 31, 2025. Section 1207 carries material based on the 2023 edition of NFPA 855 and renumbers what the 2020 code placed at Section 1206. Systems must be listed to UL 9540. Large scale fire testing under UL 9540A, reported to and approved by the fire code official, is what permits reduced separation distances and quantities above the table limits, and a hazard mitigation analysis is required to exceed the maximum allowable quantity. Outdoor installations carry a ten foot clearance to lot lines, public ways, buildings, stored combustibles, and other exposure hazards, with ten feet of combustible vegetation cleared on each side. New York added a mandatory peer review at Section 1207.12 for systems above the Table 1207.5 quantities, covering the site plan, the emergency operations plan, and the UL 9540A report. Those provisions fix pad layout and access road geometry before any earthwork is priced.
Battery storage siting in New York runs on the Fire Code of New York State, which adopts the International Fire Code provisions for stationary energy storage, together with NFPA 855 and the UL 9540A test reporting the authority having jurisdiction will ask for. The civil consequences are set early and they are ours to build.
We build to the approved civil drawings and the fire code commentary that comes with the permit. We do not stamp the design.
Local law. New York City has no battery storage moratorium, and City of Yes for Carbon Neutrality, approved in December 2023, governs zoning treatment of storage in the borough. State level response is moving separately: the Inter-Agency Fire Safety Working Group issued eleven safety recommendations scheduled for implementation by 2026, including mandatory firefighter training, and Assemblyman Sam Pirozzolo has proposed legislation requiring a minimum 1,000 foot separation between battery storage sites and residences.
Backwell superintendents, project managers, and lead operators run every site. We mobilize company equipment for the core scope and scale each project with leased production fleets, qualified regional subcontractors, and agency-placed field staff, all under Backwell supervision and a single contract.
Contractor licensing. New York does not issue a statewide general contractor license for commercial construction. Licensing is handled locally, so individual cities, towns, and counties may require contractor registration or a local license, and a few trades are licensed at the state level, including asbestos handling and crane operation. Separately, contractors and subcontractors performing public work, and work covered by Article 8 of the Labor Law, must be registered with the New York State Department of Labor under its statewide contractor registry, which took effect December 30, 2024. Owners, EPCs, and integrators on battery storage projects will typically ask for that DOL registration number along with insurance and, where required, bonding.
Construction stormwater. SPDES General Permit for Stormwater Discharges from Construction Activity, permit number GP-0-25-001, issued by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. It took effect January 29, 2025, replacing GP-0-20-001, and runs through January 28, 2030. Coverage is triggered at one acre of soil disturbance, or less if part of a larger common plan, and requires a Notice of Intent plus a SWPPP prepared and implemented under the DEC design manual. Coverage under the prior permit did not carry over automatically, so active sites had to refile. Backwell carries the SWPPP scope, installs and maintains the controls, keeps the inspection log, and closes the permit out with final stabilization.
Prevailing wage. Standalone battery storage sits outside New York Labor Law Section 224-d. That section applies to a covered renewable energy system as defined in Public Service Law Section 66-p, and that definition lists generating technologies only, so energy storage is not included and Section 224-d contains no storage clause. Prevailing wage still reaches many storage projects by other routes. Labor Law Section 224-a expressly excludes an energy storage system with a capacity equal to or under five megawatts alternating current, which means a larger storage system on a privately contracted project that meets the public funds and cost tests can be covered. The Public Service Commission order of June 20, 2024 establishing the updated energy storage goal states that projects of one megawatt alternating current and larger will be subject to prevailing wage requirements, so incentivized projects carry it as a program condition rather than by statute. Storage co-located with a covered renewable generator follows that generator. Separately, contractors and subcontractors performing public work, and work covered by Article 8 of the Labor Law, must be registered with the New York State Department of Labor under the statewide contractor registry effective December 30, 2024. The applicable trigger should be confirmed project by project. Backwell produces certified payroll, pays the applicable wage determination, and supports apprenticeship labor-hour compliance.
All New York battery storage civil work or the New York solar civil cluster.
Send plans, a scope of work, and the schedule through the form below or call (315) 400-2654. We review the civil package, walk the site if it is at that stage, and return a scoped proposal with a schedule of values, stated fill allowances, and unit rates for overages. A one-page capability statement is available for prequalification files.
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