Complete civil packages for utility solar in Jefferson County, Florida: clearing, mass grading, access roads, collection trenching, SWPPP, fencing, and substation civil.
Backwell is a civil site work general contractor serving utility solar EPCs building in Jefferson County, Florida. We contract the complete civil package under one agreement, with Backwell superintendents and lead operators on site.
Jefferson County is home to Duke Energy Florida's Bailey Mill Renewable Energy Center, a 74.9 MW site in the utility's 2025 solar base rate adjustment package that ran later than its three siblings because of permitting, pushing construction and commissioning into 2026. It is a small, rural north Florida county with limited local heavy civil capacity, which is precisely the situation where an out of area sitework contractor can compete. The county sits in Duke's north Florida territory near the Georgia line. Expect long haul distances for imported material and thin local subcontractor depth.
Publicly reported utility-scale solar in and around Jefferson 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.
Jefferson County is a north to south cross section of north Florida. North of the Cody Scarp, around Monticello and Capps, it is the Tallahassee Red Hills: rolling clayey uplands with Orangeburg, Faceville, Norfolk, Dothan, Lucy and Troup soils, sandy surfaces over red and yellow sandy clay loam subsoils, real relief and real runoff. South of the scarp the land steps down to the Woodville Karst Plain and coastal lowlands, where sand thins over Ocala and Suwannee Limestone and the soils are Leon, Mascotte, Plummer, Pelham and Scranton with a very shallow water table. The Aucilla River goes underground and resurfaces through a chain of sinks in the south county, the Wacissa springs discharge nearby, and the far south is tidal marsh on Apalachee Bay.
This is one of the few Florida counties where you are actually doing real earthwork. The Red Hills clay loam subsoils cut and compact well and hold slopes, but they are erosive, they get slick and unworkable when wet, and grading windows are weather dependent in a way that flatwoods jobs are not. Erosion control here is conventional: silt fence, check dams, slope stabilization, temporary seeding, and it has to be maintained because the runoff has energy behind it. South of the scarp the problem inverts: shallow limestone, sinks and a high table mean rock in the trench, karst risk under pads, and stormwater that connects straight to the aquifer. Access roads on the clayey uplands need drainage and crown; on the coastal flats they need base and fabric. Trench pricing should carry both a rock line and a dewatering line because the county has both.
We price the package as one scope under one contract, so the EPC has a single point of responsibility for the civil critical path instead of managing separate clearing, earthwork, and utility subcontracts.
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. Contractor licensing in Florida runs through the Department of Business and Professional Regulation and the Construction Industry Licensing Board. Pure earthwork on a solar site, meaning clearing, grubbing, grading, and access roads, is generally not a separately certified state trade by itself, but once the scope includes underground storm drainage, water, or sewer, Florida requires a Certified Underground Utility and Excavation Contractor license, a Division I state certification. Vertical or structural work such as O and M buildings or structural foundations pulls in a Certified General or Building Contractor license. A state Certified license is valid statewide, while a Registered license is limited to the local jurisdiction that issued it, and out of state firms must qualify their business entity with DBPR and typically also pull a local business tax receipt in the county of work. Confirm the exact classification with DBPR for each specific scope before bidding.
Construction stormwater. NPDES Stormwater Construction Generic Permit, commonly called the CGP, issued by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection under Rule 62-621.300(4), Florida Administrative Code. Coverage is required for construction that disturbs one acre or more, or less than one acre if part of a larger common plan of development, and that discharges to surface waters of the state or to an MS4. A Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan must be prepared before the Notice of Intent is filed, and a complete NOI plus fee must be submitted at least two calendar days before construction begins. Fees are $250 for small construction, one to five acres, and $400 for large construction, five acres or more. Source: https://floridadep.gov/water/stormwater/content/construction-activity Backwell carries the SWPPP scope, installs and maintains the controls, keeps the inspection log, and closes the permit out with final stabilization.
Prevailing wage. Federal Davis-Bacon prevailing wages apply at 1 MW AC and larger through the Inflation Reduction Act wage and apprenticeship rules that unlock the full tax credit rate, so certified payroll and registered apprentice ratios are the practical requirement on effectively every utility scale solar job in Florida. There is no state level prevailing wage requirement on top of that. Florida repealed its state prevailing wage law in 1979, and Section 255.0992, Florida Statutes, further prohibits counties, cities, and other local governments from imposing their own wage rate requirements on public works construction contracts. In practice, plan for Davis-Bacon driven certified payroll on the solar work and nothing additional from the state or a county. For projects claiming the full ITC or PTC, Backwell produces Davis-Bacon certified payroll, pays the applicable wage determination, and supports apprenticeship labor-hour compliance.
All Florida solar civil work or the national utility solar civil page.
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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