Potentially interesting for our ENST-EcoTech Design students.
Luke Wildfire, is a design consultant in Baltimore – working as water resources engineer: stormwater, stream restoration, bridge H&H, erosion/sediment control design, etc.
For the last 3-4 years, he's been involved in designing solar fields, first in the coal fields of western MD, and now throughout MD and VA. His largest project is under construction in Garret County, MD – about 700ac +/-, with hundreds of level spreaders to facilitate sheet flow under the panels, 18 stormwater basins for additional stormwater management (SWM), and dozens of sediment traps / ditches for erosion and sediment (E&S) control. In other words, designing the solar field turned into a major water resources effort – which is not the first thing people usually consider when they think about putting a solar field on top of a mountain / reclaimed strip mine.
The site is actually in Google Earth/Google Maps – halfway constructed – which is kind of neat because you can see the level spreaders before the panels are installed.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/
This Monday, 9/23, at 8pm, he will be presenting to the UMD AEES group on this project and the challenges of providing adequate E&S and SWM design for utility scale solar projects.
Sep 23, 2024, at 8pm, in Animal Sciences Building at UMD College Park campus; 8127 Regents Drive.
Luke received his master’s in Biological Systems Engineering from Virginia Tech in 2012 and was an active member of the AEES group there – he recommends the group to anyone with an interest in keeping up with latest in all things related to environmental and water resources engineering.
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Luke E Wildfire, P.E.
Project Manager
O: 410.494.9093 | D: 410.828.3082 | C: 412.874.1151
E: LWildfire@WallaceMontgomery.
10150 York Road Suite 200 Hunt Valley, MD 21030 |
Maryland | Delaware | Pennsylvania | Virginia
Sustainable Infrastructure through Innovative Engineering