Atlantis Foundries

We were tasked with designing, manufacturing, and installing a 14 MWp Fixed-Tilt Ground Mount system for Atlantis Foundries. Our client was Energy Partners.

We identified challenges through the site assessment, ranging from space constraints to a tight timeframe of four months. To put it in context, this was our largest project and it needed to be gotten over the line in our shortest-ever completion time.

It was important to us to involve Atlantis Foundries’ adjacent communities in the proposed Solar PV solution as they were facing an unemployment rate of 80%.

In response:

• We conducted careful planning of the installation, sequencing works effectively to ensure that material could be installed and daily productivity rates reached.
  Additional teams were onboarded to enable us to simultaneously complete the multiple project phrases.
• We appointed team leaders to liaise with communities and at peak production, were able to allow for 80 local community members to assist with the module installation.
• Some unplanned challenges arose, which we navigated through successfully. These involved multifaceted material issues and ramming difficulties.

In terms of material hurdles, the raw material coil arrived two months later than expected. This meant that production of purlins would run two months late. The additional international order placed was also delayed due to Houthi forces in the Red Sea and over and above this, locally produced parts had been manufactured incorrectly.

Ramming difficulties saw two work areas (previous dumping grounds) not cleared as specified. This meant that there was concrete and steel underground, which caused approximately 10% of the posts to refuse before reaching adequate ramming depth.

In response:

• Additional local material was sourced to offset the delays on the international order. This enabled no delays for Phase 3 and 4. The Caracal team implemented on-site manufacturing methods and efficiently rectified the incorrectly manufactured material.
• A drill rig was brought on-site to drill through obstacles in the one area after which these posts were concreted in. The teams then opened up the rest of the refusals in the other area and concreted those. This was sequenced in a way that works could continue and the impact of the refusal posts on the progress was mitigated.

As the largest project at that stage of our journey, the Fixed-Tilt Ground Mount System was successfully designed, manufactured, and installed in the shortest possible time.