ForeFront Power has reached commercial operation of a new solar system for the Northeast Surface Water Treatment Plant in Fresno, California, that uses the Erthos solar system. Erthos’ Earth Mount Solar system places modules directly on the earth, which allows solar project developers to eliminate all the costs required to procure and install structural steel.
ForeFront Power approached Erthos in 2023 when a combination of inflation and supply shocks caused the price of labor and materials to increase, making the project payback period unattractive for the city of Fresno.
“After conducting our due diligence and vetting Erthos technology, we discovered that the Northeast Surface Water Treatment Plant was an optimal site for an Erthos application,” said Erinne Davis, senior project manager at ForeFront Power. “Erthos helped us avoid significant, expensive civil upgrades, as well as the cost of steel for racking and the labor to install that racking. Realizing these savings on the installation is what enabled the project at this site to move forward.”
The Erthos Earth Mount Solar system is one portion of a solar and battery storage portfolio that ForeFront Power developed for Fresno’s Dept. of Public Utilities (DPU) at three sites: the Northeast Surface Water Treatment Facility, the Southeast Surface Water Treatment Facility, and the Fresno-Clovis Regional Wastewater Reclamation Facility. At a combined 27 MW-DC in size, the DPU projects are expected to save over $122 million in ratepayer dollars by 2045.
Since the Erthos system entered commercial operation in late March 2026, the system has outperformed expectations, operating at an average of 101% of expected energy production and has already delivered 862 MWh of energy to the city. ForeFront Power and Erthos continue to work closely together to optimize system performance.
In addition to avoiding material and labor costs from structural steel, ForeFront Power was able to achieve a higher generating capacity per acre thanks to the unique architecture of Erthos systems. With no row spacing, Erthos offers the highest energy density of any solar architecture in the industry. Another unique feature of Erthos Earth Mount Solar system is that, although the solar modules are mounted flat on the earth, they can follow contours up to 15% slope, meaning they were adaptable to the natural topography of the Fresno site.
ForeFront Power and Erthos have entered into an energy services agreement in which Erthos will maintain the solar energy system, including regular cleanings of the solar array by the proprietary ErthBot PV array cleaner, a dry nylon brush autonomous cleaning robot.
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