Mansfield Sand

Challenge

A key design challenge for the Mansfield Sand project was the restriction on ground penetration.

Drilling into the earth would have triggered additional mineral rights payments to the landlord, significantly increasing costs for the client.

This ruled out the conventional pile-driven approach commonly used for ground mount solar installations.

To address this, our team designed and engineered a bespoke ballasted ground mount solution instead of fixing piles into the earth.

This innovative design avoided drilling altogether, protecting the client from extra fees while ensuring the system remains stable and can be easily dismantled or relocated in the future with minimal environmental impact.

Delivering this project within an active quarry added further complexity.

Strict planning conditions and close involvement from the local council required detailed traffic management plans to handle the delivery of materials and heavy equipment safely, without disrupting quarry operations or local roads.

The site required a long and intricate DC cable run to connect the array to the existing electrical infrastructure.

Additionally, to comply with the Distribution Network Operator’s (DNO) export limits, a G100 export control solution was installed to monitor and manage power flows across four separate substations on site.

This ensured that the system would not exceed permitted export thresholds while maximising the amount of generated electricity used on site — a key factor in delivering energy cost savings for the client.

Despite these site-specific and technical challenges, the ballasted system was installed quickly and cleanly, avoiding the ground disturbance often associated with heavy machinery in similar industrial settings.

Today, the completed 1.2 MWp solar ground mount, consisting of 2,080 panels, generates an estimated 1,112,256 kWh of renewable electricity each year.

This directly reduces Mansfield Sand’s reliance on grid electricity and cuts annual CO₂ emissions by an estimated 259,155 kg.