{"id":33345,"date":"2026-02-12T19:11:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T19:11:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.trccompanies.com\/?post_type=news-and-insights&p=33345"},"modified":"2026-02-13T17:48:25","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T17:48:25","slug":"solar-energy-and-stormwater-erosion-sediment-and-their-controls","status":"publish","type":"news-and-insights","link":"https:\/\/www.trccompanies.com\/fr\/insights\/solar-energy-and-stormwater-erosion-sediment-and-their-controls\/","title":{"rendered":"Solar Energy and Stormwater: Erosion, Sediment and Their Controls"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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As solar power generation expands, so does the potential for stormwater runoff. The rapid growth of solar energy has transformed former farm fields, landfills and industrial sites into utility-scale solar facilities that now power surrounding communities. Throughout this solar boom, TRC has been at the forefront of monitoring solar farms during construction, helping address erosion and sediment control challenges to protect surrounding land and waterways.<\/p>\n

When designing stormwater management for solar projects, it\u2019s common to focus only on the long-term design elements. Traditional industrial sites often rely on catch basins, oil water separators and flow meters. But solar farms are different. Typically built in agricultural or meadowed fields and supported by racking posts driven into the ground, solar sites rely on post-construction stormwater management practices that are generally limited to detention basins and swales. In our experience, the real potential for stormwater to wreak havoc occurs during the construction phase before vegetation is established.<\/p>\n

Overland Flow: How Bigger is Not Always Better<\/h2>\n

Surface runoff comes in two main forms; sheet flow and concentrated flow. Sheet flow is a wide, shallow \u00ab\u00a0wave\u201d of runoff that flows across a wide area. Concentrated flow is just the opposite; a volume of water collected into one or more localized channels. As a rule of thumb sheet flow can only be sustained for 100 feet before it accumulates into concentrated flow.<\/p>\n

Think of it like the relationship between force and area. If you step on a single nail, you are certainly in for a safety incident report. Yet, if you lay across a bed of nails, your downward force spreads across multiple points and injury can be avoided. The same applies for stormwater control \u2013 shallow, dispersed flow contains less concentrated force.<\/p>\n

The Solar Farm Challenge\u2014Disperse!<\/h2>\n

Solar farms present an interesting challenge for stormwater control designers. They span relatively large areas, at times exceeding one-thousand acres. Large portions of those sites may need to be graded or disturbed during construction. On that scale, even light rain can result in hundreds of thousands of cubic feet of water across the site. How do designers even attempt to control this amount of water? The answer is to disperse it as much as possible!<\/p>\n

Key Construction Phase Stormwater Controls<\/h3>\n

During construction, stormwater practices must be simple, effective and maintainable. Common controls include:<\/p>\n