McCarthy Building Companies completes large-scale HYDER II solar installation

YUMA, Ariz. - Feb. 10, 2014 - PRLog -- McCarthy Building Companies recently completed the installation of a large-scale solar project called Hyder II for Arizona Public Service (APS), which owns and operates the plant.

Located on 240 acres in eastern Yuma County, Hyder II uses more than 71,000 single-axis tracking photovoltaic panels to generate 14 megawatts (MW) of solar energy, enough to serve 3,500 Arizona homes.

The project was built through the APS AZ Sun Program. The AZ Sun Program was approved by the Arizona Corporation Commission and has enabled APS to invest in the development of large-scale solar power plants across Arizona, with a planned capacity of 200 MW. Six AZ Sun projects have been completed so far. Another facility is under construction, and two more were recently approved by the ACC to begin construction in 2014.

“Hyder II is the third solar project we have worked on for APS, which is rapidly expanding its solar portfolio and solar leadership in the state,” said Scott Canada, director of the Renewable Energy team at McCarthy Building Companies. “Our system engineering and construction expertise has helped APS harness the power of the sun and turn it into clean, renewable energy. Additionally, the project added 150 local jobs to Arizona during construction last year.”

The main subcontractors on the project included Trina Solar, Eaton, Delta Diversified, PV Hardware, Schuff Steel and Blount Contracting.  McCarthy also contracted Taylor-RyMar Corporation and Dibble Engineering for electrical and civil engineering.

The completion of Hyder II caps a record year for APS, with 410 MW of large-scale and customer-owned solar capacity added to its generating portfolio. This represents the company’s largest annual increase in solar capacity and nearly triples the total brought online in 2012, when it added nearly 150 MW of capacity.

Overall, APS is spending nearly $1 billion on solar projects across the state. With more than 750 MW of solar capacity on its system, APS has enough solar energy to serve more than 185,000 Arizona homes.

To date, McCarthy Building Companies’ Renewable Energy team, based in Phoenix, has completed several large-scale solar installations across the desert Southwest representing a combined capacity of more than 70 MW of solar energy production. The division was named to Solar Power World’s Top 250 solar contractors list (rank #23) in September 2013.

In addition to Hyder II, McCarthy also completed the 18-MW APS Cotton Center Solar Station in Gila Bend, Ariz and the 20-MW APS Chino Valley Solar Plant in Chino Valley, Ariz.

McCarthy also works with a number of school districts and universities in the Southwest and California to install smaller-scale solar projects on school rooftops and parking structures.

ABOUT MCCARTHY

McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. is the nation's 10th largest domestic general contractor (Engineering News-Record, May 2013) and Arizona's 4th largest commercial builder (Phoenix Business Journal, December 2013). With 150 years of experience, McCarthy is one of the nation's oldest, privately held construction firms and one of Arizona's premier commercial builders. Committed to high-quality construction, the company provides general contracting, construction management, program management and design/build services for utility companies, healthcare and educational facilities, and water/wastewater projects.  McCarthy’s Southwest Division is based in Phoenix. McCarthy also has offices in Albuquerque; Newport Beach, San Diego, Sacramento and San Francisco, Calif.; Las Vegas; Dallas and Houston; St. Louis and Atlanta.  McCarthy is 100 percent employee-owned.  More information is available at www.McCarthy.com.

ABOUT APS

APS (http://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&url=ht...), Arizona’s largest and longest-serving electricity utility, serves more than 1.1 million customers in 11 of the state’s 15 counties. With headquarters in Phoenix, APS is the principal subsidiary of Pinnacle West Capital Corp. (http://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&url=ht...) .