When You Can't Break Ground: DCE's Ballasted Foundation is the Solution

Some of the best solar sites in the country come with a catch: you're not allowed to touch what's underneath them. Landfills, capped brownfields, and other environmentally sensitive parcels are increasingly attractive for solar development, precisely because they're otherwise hard to repurpose. But standard driven, screw, or helical foundations aren't an option when ground penetration is off the table.

That's the gap DCE Solar's Ballasted Foundation was built to close.

How It Works

Rather than anchoring racking into the ground, the system uses precast concrete ballast blocks to hold arrays in place through weight and footprint, not penetration. It's compatible with DCE's full ground mount lineup, including the Long Span, Long Span Bifacial, LS S7 and LS S6 racking, so teams aren't locked into a single racking style to use it.

A few features that stand out for engineers and installers:

• Precast, not improvised. Blocks are locally sourced and built with premium materials for durability across weather conditions. A pour-in-place option is also available for developers that prefer it.

• Built for the field. Vertical support members come pre-installed, so distribution and assembly move faster and with fewer surprises on site.

• Stable on tough terrain. The gravel footprint delivers strong stability, with adjustments available to accommodate slopes up to 20%.

• Sized to the site. Every ballast is customized to meet the specific load-bearing capacity of the location it's installed on, not a generic, one-size-fits-all block.

  
  

Precision in the Details

DCE's Long Span Ballasted installation reflects just how tightly the tolerances are controlled in the field. Ballast blocks are set on a foundation bed leveled within ±1 degree. Crews align a minimum of six ballast blocks at a time using a string line, and structural hardware, torqued to spec and marked for inspection. Grounding is handled with a UL-approved lay-in lug at each row, and the system is compatible with any panel on DCE's UL 2703 certified list.

The result is a foundation system that's engineered as rigorously as anything driven into the ground, just without the ground penetration.

Why It Matters

Landfill and brownfield solar sites aren’t a niche use case anymore. It's a growing category, and the projects that pencil out often depend on a foundation system that respects site restrictions without compromising on durability or installation speed. DCE's Ballasted Foundation gives developers a way to say yes to sites that would otherwise be off limits.

DCE Solar has more than 2 GW installed, with integrated wire management and a reputation for customer service that's earned the company a spot on the Inc 5000 list. For sites where you can't break ground, the Ballasted Foundation is one more way to keep a project moving forward.