Commercial and industrial solar project developer ForeFront Power has completed its first Erthos solar energy system for the city of Fresno, California’s Northeast Surface Water Treatment Plant, officials say.

The Erthos project program aims to “distills the complexity of solar energy systems into a modular, repeatable design,” the company says. The project style cuts out the proverbial middle man of steel mounting by drilling the solar panels’ mounts directly into the earth, which allows project developers to eliminate all steel-related costs. From there, those savings are passed onto the project’s owners in the form of lower electrical bill rates.

“After conducting our due diligence and vetting Erthos technology, we discovered that the Northeast Surface Water Treatment Plant was an optimal site for an Erthos application,” says Erinne Davis, senior project manager at ForeFront Power. “Erthos helped us avoid significant, expensive civil upgrades, as well as the cost of steel for racking and the labor to install that racking. Realizing these savings on the installation is what enabled the project at this site to move forward.”

ForeFront says it first approached Erthos in 2023 thanks to a combination of inflation and supply chain issues. With the costs of both labor and materials spiking, a traditional ground-mounted system would be much too expensive for the city of Fresno. The earth-mounted solution was the obvious answer, according to the company.

Since the system entered full commercial operation status in March 2026, the project has “consistently outperformed expectations,” according to ForeFront officials. As of Aug. 13, the project has already delivered about 862 MWh to the city of Fresno.

Using Erthos’s architectural advantages

Alongside savings in material and labor costs, ForeFront says the Erthos system’s unique architecture allowed it to achieve a higher generating capacity than a normal system.

The project boasts no row spacing thanks to its unique mounting strategy, thus offering the highest energy density of any solar architecture in the energy industry. The panels can follow contours of up to a 15% slope, which allowed them to adapt to the natural landscape in Fresno.

“The Fresno project demonstrates how Erthos Earth Mount Solar can unlock projects that might otherwise be constrained by conventional construction costs,” says Jim Tyler, CEO of Erthos. “Working with ForeFront Power, we delivered a high-density solar system designed for strong long-term performance, efficient maintenance, and lower-cost energy for the City of Fresno.”

Following the project’s completion, ForeFront and Erthos have entered into an Energy Service Agreement, the companies say. Erthos will maintain the solar system, including regular cleanings of the panels themselves through the use of the ErthBot PV solar array cleaner. The cleaning robot has been specially designed for earth-mounted solar panels, and will be part of Erthos’s operations and maintenance segment of the Energy Services Agreement.

Tags: California, Erthos, Forefront Power, mounting, project