Solar site work contractor serving New York. Land clearing, grubbing, rough grading, access roads, and conduit trenching for utility-scale, community, and commercial solar projects across NY.
Backwell is a utility-scale solar site work contractor based in Constantia, NY, handling the earthwork, environmental compliance, and civil construction that has to happen on a solar farm before the first panel goes up. New York has been one of the largest solar construction markets in the country over the last several years, utility-scale, community solar, commercial ground-mount, and every one of those projects starts with solar site work. But solar site work is not the same job it was a decade ago. The IRA tax credit compliance framework, ORES Article VIII review for utility-scale projects, NYSDEC stormwater requirements, NYSDAM agricultural restoration protocols, and the environmental staffing demands of modern solar construction have created a completely different bar for what a civil subcontractor has to deliver. Brute force excavation is not the job. Brute force excavation plus the compliance infrastructure to keep the tax credit intact, that is the job.
Backwell has built its solar practice around that reality. We own our iron, we staff our own environmental compliance team, we work at prevailing wage, we coordinate with registered apprenticeship programs, and we handle the paperwork that keeps the developer's tax position intact. On our last utility-scale bid package, a 119 MWac facility in Jefferson County, NY under ORES Article VIII with karst terrain, shallow limestone bedrock, 250+ acres of jurisdictional wetlands, and full NYSDAM agricultural restoration requirements, the civil scope came in at $18.475M. We priced it because we have the equipment, the certified staff, and the operational experience to actually execute it. That is the difference between a site work contractor and a solar site work contractor.
The Inflation Reduction Act restructured the federal solar tax credit landscape in 2022. For any solar project that starts construction in 2023 or later, the base Investment Tax Credit (ITC) is 6%, unless the project meets the prevailing wage and apprenticeship requirements, in which case the credit jumps to 30%. That is a five-times multiplier on one of the largest line items on a utility-scale solar pro forma. On a $20M solar project, the difference between compliant and non-compliant is \$4.8M in lost tax credit. Solar developers cannot afford to use a civil contractor who does not understand this framework, and the developers who have been burned by non-compliant contractors do not hire them twice.
The IRA has three stacking bonuses beyond the base 30% ITC:
Stacked, a fully compliant solar project can reach a 50%+ ITC, but only if the civil, racking, and electrical contractors all deliver against the requirements. The site work contractor is the first trade on site and the first line of compliance. Get the paperwork wrong at the civil stage and the entire stack comes apart.
The two requirements that most commonly trip solar developers into losing their ITC bonus are prevailing wage and apprenticeship utilization. Backwell is built to satisfy both.
All laborers, mechanics, and construction workers on a PW-compliant solar project must be paid at the Davis-Bacon prevailing wage rates for the locality and trade classification, with fringe benefits at the prevailing fringe rate. For New York State projects, rates are set by the NYS Department of Labor and published county-by-county. Backwell operates on prevailing wage for every qualifying solar project we work on, maintains certified payroll records under 29 CFR Part 3 and 5, submits the required certifications, and handles the recordkeeping that developers need to document compliance in the event of a tax audit. We have been paying NYS prevailing wage on qualifying jobs since before the IRA restructured the ITC framework, this is not a new capability for us.
The IRA requires that a minimum percentage of total labor hours on a project be performed by qualified apprentices from registered apprenticeship programs. The percentage escalates over time, 12.5% for projects starting construction in 2023, 15% for 2024 and later. There are additional requirements around apprentice-to-journey-worker ratios, participation of every contractor and subcontractor with four or more employees, and good-faith effort documentation when qualified apprentices are not available in a local area. Backwell is apprenticeship program compliant. We coordinate with registered apprenticeship programs in Central and Northern New York, maintain the required apprentice hour ratios on our crews, document the hours under 26 CFR 1.45-7, and handle the good-faith effort paperwork on projects where local apprentice availability is limited. This is the specific capability that many solar developers are told their civil contractor will deliver and then discover, late in the project, that the contractor cannot.
For utility-scale solar projects over 25 MW in New York State, the Office of Renewable Energy Siting (ORES) Article VIII siting process replaces the former Article 10 Public Service Law review. Under Article VIII, projects go through a consolidated permitting process with the Executive Department's Office of Renewable Energy Siting, and the permit itself carries dense conditions across wildlife, wetlands, agriculture, cultural resources, stormwater, and construction phasing. Backwell has executed under ORES Article VIII conditions on utility-scale solar projects in Jefferson County and elsewhere in New York State. We know what the permit conditions look like in practice, the 5-acre maximum open disturbance limit at any given time, the required seasonal work restrictions for Indiana bat habitat (tree clearing prohibited April 1 through October 31), the wildlife-friendly fencing requirements with passage gaps, the mandatory full-time on-site environmental monitoring during ground disturbance, the weekly SWPPP inspections plus additional inspections within 24 hours of any 0.25-inch or larger rain event, the NYSDAM agricultural restoration requirements with topsoil stripping and stockpiling and mandatory decompaction of trafficked ag soils at project close-out. These are not hypothetical compliance items. They are the items that send change orders through the roof when a contractor has never seen them before.
Modern utility-scale solar construction in New York requires full-time certified environmental staff on site at all times during ground disturbance. Backwell staffs its own environmental compliance team so we are not chasing subcontractors when the ORES inspector shows up. Our environmental capability includes:
This is what Backwell means when we say we understand the back-end of solar construction as well as the front-end. The dirt work is necessary but not sufficient. The paperwork is what keeps the project legal, and it is what keeps the developer's tax position intact.
Backwell has executed utility-scale solar civil scopes across the Northeast with site conditions ranging from routine agricultural ground-mount to extreme limestone karst terrain with shallow bedrock and high water tables. Our recent bid work has included utility-scale projects with:
Backwell handles solar site work for solar developers, EPC contractors, civil engineering firms, and directly for landowners leasing to utility-scale and community solar projects across New York and the Northeast. Typical solar civil scope project size starts at \$50,000 for small commercial ground-mount and runs up to \$25M+ for large utility-scale solar farm civil packages. We coordinate with racking installers, DC electrical crews, interconnection teams, and DOT and ORES on access road permits. We work as a civil subcontractor to EPC firms and as a direct contractor to developers who separate civil scope from the racking and electrical packages.
Backwell provides solar site work across Syracuse, Auburn, Rome, Utica, Oswego, Fulton, Oneida, Cortland, Cazenovia, Canastota, Chittenango, Liverpool, Baldwinsville, Cicero, Clay, East Syracuse, Camillus, Manlius, Fayetteville, Skaneateles, Geneva, Seneca Falls, Newark, Lyons, Palmyra, Sodus, Waterloo, Jefferson County, Watertown, and across Central, Northern, and Upstate New York. For utility-scale solar contracts at the \$5M+ civil package level, we mobilize anywhere in New York State and into the broader Northeast.
Solar developers have been burned by site work contractors who did not understand the compliance framework, did not know what ORES Article VIII permits required in practice, did not have environmental staff to put on site, did not run prevailing wage, could not document apprenticeship utilization, and blew up the schedule when the first big rain event triggered a SWPPP violation. Backwell was built to not be that contractor. Ron answers the phone directly, which matters on solar projects where the developer needs a real answer about a real compliance question in real time, not a three-day game of telephone through a corporate chain of command. We bring our own iron, our own certified environmental team, our own prevailing wage payroll infrastructure, and our own apprenticeship compliance paperwork, so the developer does not have to check on us every Friday to make sure the civil scope is still tracking against the tax credit framework. That is the whole point of hiring a solar site work contractor who understands the back-end of the job as well as the front-end.
Backwell also handles commercial site work, utility site work and underground utility installation, commercial drain tile repair including solar farm drainage repair, land clearing, commercial grading, trenching, access road construction, and erosion and sediment control across New York.
Yes. Backwell coordinates with registered apprenticeship programs in Central and Northern New York, maintains the required apprentice hour ratios on our crews, documents the hours under 26 CFR 1.45-7, and handles the good-faith effort paperwork on projects where local apprentice availability is limited. This is one of the two IRA compliance items (the other is prevailing wage) that determine whether a solar developer gets 6% or 30% ITC.
Yes. Backwell operates on Davis-Bacon prevailing wage rates for all qualifying solar projects, maintains certified payroll records, and submits the documentation needed to support developer tax credit claims. NYS prevailing wage compliance has been a Backwell capability since before the IRA restructured the ITC framework.
Backwell has bid and executed solar civil scopes up to the \$20M+ level (119 MWac utility-scale). For larger projects, we scale the environmental compliance team and equipment fleet accordingly. We typically serve as civil subcontractor to EPC firms on projects in the \$5M-\$25M civil scope range.
Yes. Backwell has worked under ORES Article VIII permit conditions on utility-scale solar projects, including the 5-acre maximum disturbance limit, Indiana bat seasonal clearing restrictions, wildlife-friendly fencing, full-time environmental monitoring, and the NYSDAM agricultural restoration protocols.
Yes. For projects electing the 10% Domestic Content bonus, Backwell sources 100% domestic US steel for all structural rebar and structural steel in the civil scope.
Utility-scale solar civil scope in the Northeast typically runs \$35K to \$45K per MWac for civil work, or \$150K to \$200K per MWac for the full civil-plus-environmental package on ORES-jurisdiction projects. Community solar and commercial ground-mount run lower per-MW. Backwell provides per-acre and per-MWac estimates on every solar project.
Backwell is part of a Central New York family of service companies. When a commercial site needs ongoing property management after construction, our sister company RenPro Property Management handles leasing, rent collection, and maintenance across 100+ properties in Syracuse, Oswego, Auburn, and Utica. Learn more about our network of companies.