Engineering for the Edge
Ten years ago, a commercial solar racking job usually meant a flat, dry site. Wind and snow calculations were on the checklist, but they rarely kept anyone up at night. The map looks different now. Projects are breaking ground across the Upper Midwest, the Northeast, the high plains, and mountain valleys with microclimates of their own. South Dakota's solar generation rose roughly 3,600 percent in 2023 as its first utility-scale farms came online, and Nebraska's installed capacity quadrupled in 2024. For a developer, that growth shows up as a site with a ground snow load or wind exposure category the racking spec sheet was never tested against...
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