Complete civil packages for utility solar in Pike County, Indiana: 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 Pike County, Indiana. We contract the complete civil package under one agreement, with Backwell superintendents and lead operators on site.
Pike County is AES Indiana's generation hub around the Petersburg Generating Station, and the utility has committed roughly a billion dollars of investment in the county covering unit repowering plus solar and storage. The Petersburg Energy Center pairs 250 MW of solar with 180 MWh of storage and includes a 6.6 mile transmission line, and a standalone 200 MW four hour battery project came online in March 2025 using interconnection rights from a retired coal unit. Coal plant sites with existing interconnection are the single best predictor of repeat solar and storage construction, and Pike County has that in concentrated form. Expect continued balance of plant, battery pad, access road, and transmission corridor civil work tied to AES Indiana's transition plan.
Publicly reported utility-scale solar in and around Pike 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.
Pike County sits in the Wabash Lowland on Pennsylvanian sandstone, shale and coal bedrock under a thin loess cap, and a large share of the county has been surface mined. Reclaimed spoil, regraded highwall lines and final cut lakes cover thousands of acres, and those areas are mapped as spoil and Udorthents rather than natural soil series. Undisturbed uplands carry Zanesville, Wellston and Alford silt loams, several of which have a fragipan a couple of feet down that perches water in spring. The Patoka River crosses the county in a broad, sluggish bottom with Bonnie, Wakeland, Steff and Petrolia soils and extensive wetland in the Patoka River National Wildlife Refuge, and the White River forms the northwest edge.
On mined ground, assume nothing is uniform: fill depth, compaction and material change over short distances, buried highwalls and spoil piles produce differential settlement, and pile refusal on sandstone slabs sits next to soft zones in the same row. That drives a heavier boring program on pile line spacing rather than a standard grid, and it can push refusal driving or predrilling. Spoil also raises acidity and metals questions for stormwater discharge, so test before you plan dewatering outfalls. On the undisturbed uplands the fragipan means perched water and long wet windows even where the surface looks dry, and stripping the loess exposes an erodible silt that gullies fast. Trenching in spoil is rock heavy with poor backfill material, so budget imported bedding and select fill. Anything approaching the Patoka bottoms means wetland delineation, floodplain permitting and long access road fills.
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. Indiana does not issue a statewide general contractor or commercial building contractor license. Contractor licensing and registration is handled at the city and county level, so requirements vary by jurisdiction. Larger cities including Indianapolis, Evansville, Fort Wayne, and South Bend run their own contractor licensing or registration programs, generally requiring a fee, a contractor bond, general liability coverage, and workers compensation, with some jurisdictions also requiring an exam. Many rural solar host counties have no general contractor license at all, but a civil contractor should still expect county road use and haul route agreements, road maintenance bonds, county drainage board coordination on regulated drains and tile, and local building or improvement location permits. Verify the specific city or county requirement before mobilizing rather than assuming a state credential exists.
Construction stormwater. Construction Stormwater General Permit, known as the CSGP, issued by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, IDEM. It applies to construction activity disturbing one acre or more of total land area, and to smaller areas that are part of a larger common plan of development or sale. As of December 18, 2021 the CSGP replaced the prior program administered under 327 IAC 15-5, commonly called Rule 5. Coverage is obtained by filing a Notice of Intent, or NOI, with IDEM, supported by a stormwater pollution prevention plan. Local soil and water conservation districts and county or municipal MS4 programs typically review and inspect on IDEM's behalf, so a utility-scale solar site will usually deal with both IDEM and the county SWCD. Backwell carries the SWPPP scope, installs and maintains the controls, keeps the inspection log, and closes the permit out with final stabilization.
Prevailing wage. Indiana has no state prevailing wage law. The Indiana Common Construction Wage Act was repealed effective July 1, 2015, and the state has not replaced it, so there is no state level wage determination for public or private work. Federal Davis-Bacon prevailing wage still applies to federally funded work, and applies to utility-scale solar through the Inflation Reduction Act labor requirements: projects of 1 MW AC and larger must pay Davis-Bacon prevailing wages and meet registered apprenticeship ratios to claim the full value of the investment or production tax credit. In practice that means nearly every utility-scale solar project in Indiana is built on certified payroll with apprenticeship participation even though the state itself imposes nothing. Owners and EPCs will also often impose their own project labor agreements or workforce commitments on top of the federal requirement. 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 Indiana 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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