Complete civil packages for utility solar near St. Cloud, FL: clearing, mass grading, access roads, collection trenching, SWPPP, fencing, and substation civil.
Backwell contracts complete civil site work packages for utility solar EPCs building near St. Cloud in Osceola County, Florida. One contract covers clearing through final stabilization, with Backwell field leadership on site.
On US 192 and Canoe Creek Road with Florida's Turnpike a short run west, so oversize and heavy haul move without going through Orlando. The Harmony and Nova Road corridor east of town is where the county's utility scale solar development has concentrated.
Publicly reported utility-scale solar in and around Osceola 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.
Osceola County is flat pine flatwoods and prairie on the Osceola Plain and the Kissimmee River valley, mostly between 55 and 80 feet elevation with grades under one percent over miles. Dominant soils are sandy Spodosols: Immokalee, Myakka, Smyrna, EauGallie and Ona fine sands, with Basinger and Placid fine sands in the sloughs and Samsula and Terra Ceia mucks in the strands and cypress domes. Pomello and Satellite fine sands sit on the low relict dune rises. The defining feature is a weakly cemented spodic horizon (hardpan) commonly 20 to 40 inches down that perches water, so the seasonal high water table sits at or within a foot of the surface from June through October. Drainage runs south through Shingle Creek, Reedy Creek, Bull Creek and the Kissimmee chain of lakes into SFWMD works.
Clearing is light where the site is improved pasture and heavy where it is palmetto and slash pine flatwoods, and the palmetto root mat grubs out thick and bulky with a high disposal volume. Mass grading is minimal by cut volume but the whole job is water management: you are building crown, perimeter berms and interior swales to move sheet flow, and the spodic hardpan means water sits on top of it rather than percolating. Access roads need geotextile separation and imported limerock or shell base because the native fine sand pumps under loaded haul trucks once the table is up. Trenching is easy digging but wet, so plan on well point or sump dewatering below about three feet in the wet season and expect sidewall sloughing in clean sand. Erosion control is more about turbidity and ponding than slope failure, and wetland and SFWMD or SJRWMD ERP boundaries drive the disturbance limits more than the topography does.
Full detail on the Osceola County market is on the Osceola County solar civil page.
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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