MTN

Africa’s telecommunications giant said hello to the innovative application of Solar PV at its headquarters located in Johannesburg. The project resulted in the bespoke design and installation of a 5 MW Solar PV system, which combined a 4.1 MW PremierPort Cantilever solar carport and 0.9 MW ZAM coated all-steel Ground Mount solution.

Site complexities included a curved/cambered parking landscape with islands and significant differences in levels. As a result, split foundations had to be designed and these needed to have differential heights in grout columns to ensure that the structures were installed at a maximum 1 degree slope.

Alignment of structures across a fall and camber is not easy when considering the length of the runs and the need to maintain an aesthetic. Although, at times not fully appreciated, the fact that the edge of the modules aligned (despite the fall and camber within the tolerance) is testament to the amount of upfront planning and care taken to ensure constructability.

As a rule, one of the items to which we dedicate a disproportionately high amount of time is the casting of the foundations and the hold down anchors. If we align these elements to extremely tight tolerances, we find the translation of quality through the rest of the construction to be far better. In effect, “aim small, miss small” is often stated at Caracal.

Ground conditions provided additional curveballs as there were large concrete blocks found underneath the pavement, which had to be removed. Poor soil conditions were also found using DCP tests and we had to implement plate load tests to confirm the actual bearing pressure of the soil.

Further pressure was added as the project schedule was extremely tight.

Caracal Engineering completed this challenging carport project for an exacting client before the tight project close-out date. We delivered everything from start to finish, designing, manufacturing and installing a Solar PV solution that covered a substantial scale of site, i.e. almost all of MTN’s exposed parking.