Top Ten Solar

10. CH2M Hill

Every solar panel and power project developer is gunning for opportunities to build power plants for American utilities, so firms with an expertise on power plant engineering and construction will have an advantage to win contracts. CH2M Hill is poised to profit handsomely from the rush by utilities and independent power plant operators to build large-scale solar farms.

Englewood, Colo.-based CH2M claims to have 40 years of experience delivering solar energy projects internationally. It won a contract to oversee the construction of Schott Solar’s $100 million factory in Albuquerque, M.N. to make solar panels and solar-thermal equipment. CH2M announced last October that it would conduct a feasibility study and other consulting work for a 1-megawatt solar project at an AT&T facility in San Ramon, Calif. CH2M also is managing the first-phase development of the carbon-neutral, greentech-filled Masdar City in Abu Dhabi that would get the bulk of its electricity from rooftop solar and solar farms. The engineering firm added that it has worked with an unnamed industrial operator to install solar-thermal equipment for power generation, and with other companies such as Pacific Solar in Australia on starting or expanding solar energy equipment factories.

Competition for utility-scale projects will be intense, of course. Serious contenders include San Francisco-based Bechtel. Bechtel worked on a solar-thermal power tower project with Boeing, Southern California Edison and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory back in the late 1990s. In its recent annual report, Bechtel said it had launched new efforts to pursue solar projects.

Another contenders is defense contractor Lockheed Martin, which says it entered the solar space two years ago because energy had become a national security issue. Lockheed, based in Bethesda, M.d., unveiled a test solar array in New Jersey last month, a project to investigate different types of solar-thermal technologies. It also is teaming up with Starwood Energy Group, which would line up financing, land and permits for developing solar power plants.