I took a job in solar — and ended up drilling in the Permian Basin.
Yes, that Permian Basin. The legendary sedimentary formation straddling Texas and New Mexico that has produced more than 40 billion barrels of oil, according to Southwest Economy, and helped power the modern industrial era. Not exactly the first place that comes to mind when you think “solar power plant.”
If you’ve read The Boom by our industry colleague Russell Gold, you know the Permian is practically a character in its own right — synonymous with grit, geology, and black gold. It’s the basin that brought shale into the mainstream.
Now, it’s helping write a new chapter.
At Lydian Energy’s AC Ranch site, we’re partnering with AUI Partners to build solar in terrain once defined by hydrocarbons — made possible by this innovation: NX Earth Truss®.
Nextpower’s iconic BHA atop the new NX Earth Truss, part of Nextpower’s new integrated foundation offerings.
NX Earth Truss empowers our customers to land solar anywhere thanks to automated drilling and a design that removes 16 fasteners at every foundation location. That is 1,800 fewer components per megawatt (MW).
NX Earth Truss is efficiently installed with the Truss Driver®, which sets screws into rock without pre-drilling, and leaves behind a tracker-ready foundation in one pass. The machines are calibrated to the NX Horizon™ tracker design, hitting extremely tight tolerances without grading requirements or post-install adjustments. Nextpower has always valued precision engineering, but AC Ranch has been a household name in precision execution.
AC Ranch has also been a statement of speed. First-time operators — many of whom have experience on oil and gas drill sites — are already driving over six rows a day per machine after only a few weeks of training. And thanks to the integrated system, the foundations team gives the racking team a massive head start.
Thanks to AUI and the engineering of the integrated NX Earth Truss, the Permian basin is now a perfect location for solar power. You can set screws directly into rock without pre-drilling, hit tight tolerances, and remove thousands of fasteners per MW through integrated design.
Solar drilled into oil country. Solar built anywhere. You’ve gotta love it.
By Stuart Upfill-Brown, Staff Engineering Program Manager - Foundations, Nextpower