Solar and Piling Specialists

Clean, eco-friendly energy is the future.

About Us

IBEX Solar and Piling Limited (IBEX S&P) was founded in June 2024 to provide design and build piling services as well as in-situ pile design verification/validations tests (e.g. axial loading tests, lateral, compression and vertical pull-out tests or the like) for the renewable industry, in particular for solar schemes across the United Kingdom. Our founding director Levent Dogan (LD) is a pioneering chartered civil engineer who has founded UK’s one of the first Solar Research and Design (R&D) team in Dorset in 2012 on behalf of UK’s leading solar firm and manufacturer. Our very own LD and his team had developed UK’s first ‘A’ frame pull-out testing equipment (now have been replaced with heavy machinery and digital load cells). Our very own LD’s pull-out testing procedure and his method statements (in accordance with Eurocode 7) are still widely used and accepted within the industry across the UK.

At IBEX, we offer a comprehensive service designed to expedite the installation of solar farms efficiently and cost-effectively. With over 30 years of combined expertise in Surveying, Testing, Design and Installation you can be assured your project is in capable hands.

Services

Our Services

Full-Service or
A La Carte

Choose any of our services or use them all—from site surveys and load testing to project design, planning, and installations. Alternatively, you can purchase our products and handle the installation yourself.

Project Design
and Planning

Our team supports you from the initial project details to the final installation of piles, ground anchors and solar mounting systems.

Expert Installation
of Piles only

Our experienced installers can set up multiple racking systems in a single day for ground-mounted solar panels. We have the manpower and machinery to scale up installation, regardless of the size of your solar schemes.

We handle challenging conditions like soft or rocky ground, sloped land, and difficult access quickly and effectively. Speed up your solar farm project with IBEX's full-service solutions, ensuring a smooth and efficient installation process.

To ensure you select the correct ground screw or screw piles or mini-CFA piles for your project, our partner firm IBEX Consulting Engineers Limited provides a detailed design (civil and structural calculations) as well as comprehensive site surveys and in-situ load tests to validate the designed piled foundations. The data collected during these tests confirms the suitability and capabilities of using mini piled foundations for your specific project needs.

Site Surveys and Load Testing Service by IBEX

Piling

Piling and Piled Foundations

At IBEX Solar and Piling Ltd (IBEX S&P), we are pride ourselves in providing cost effective and robust design and build mini piling services for a very wide range of projects ranging from small-scale residential developments to large mega solar farms. Please note that a robust ground investigation is required to enable us to design the proposed piled foundations.

We own MGI Tonker 830's which are able to install steel screw piles, mini-RC piles, mini-CFA piles up to 300mm in diameter (or 10”).

Please get in touch for a quote

We pride offering cost effective and robust foundation options to residential homeowner as well as to the commercial sector. With over 20 years of experince within the infrastructure industry, you will receive an excellent customer service even prior to the commencement of the works. We beleieve that every ground related challenge has a robust and environmental friendly and cost effective engineering solution, therefore it is very important to select the right team and designer for your project.

What We Promise

• Free Site Visit

• Free Pre-construction Consultancy

• Free Quote

• 10 Year Warranty of all Work

• Robust ground investigation survey to aid pile design (if required)

• Excellence and robust service

• Sound design (e.g. geotechnical & structural)

• Cost effective and environmental friendly foundation solutions

• Super fast mobilisation

• Super fast pile installation and in house steel cage fabrication

• 12 hour turnaround on our free quotes

We are able to design and build mini piles (driven or augered) up to 300mm in diameters, their applications are as follows:

• Underpinning for residential properties

• Driven RC Concrete Piles

• Driven Steel Piles

• Driven Concrete Pile

• Agugered Piles

• Retaining Walls

• Hybrid Piles

• Solar Farms

• Highway safety fence installations

Please contact our team on the below contact details or call to discuss your project with our estimator chartered civil engineer.

Solar Schemes

It is the requirement of the majority of local planning authorities that Phase 1 non-intrusive investigations (desk studies) and Phase 2 intrusive ground investigations to be carried and all of the geotechnical and chemical soil/water hazards have been identified, detected and mitigated prior to the commencement of the solar park schemes or any other schemes in the UK. Phase 2 intrusive ground investigations would also aid to inform the geotechnical assessment of the scheme.

It should be noted that the vast majority of solar park schemes’ foundations comprised of driven galvanised steel piles. Therefore, determining and designing sufficient pile depths plays a significant role to save time and costs. At IBEX Solar and Piling Ltd (IBEX S&P), our chartered civil engineers have over 20 years of experience within the industry, we prefer to cross correlate our pile design with in-situ axial load tests (pull-out, lateral and compression) in accordance with Eurocode 7. We also determine a tolerable Factor of Safety (FoS) as well as ‘satisfactory’ utilisation factors using a geotechnical software to deliver a more robust design.

Although, the appointed manufacturer’ structural teams provide the site-specific variable/permanent actions, we can also estimate moderately conservative prevailing actions/loads (after BS EN 1991-1-3:2003) and in line with your requirements and site’s geography.

As part of our standard investigations, our partner team can also obtain chemical samples at regular intervals to inform our corrosion assessment to determine the required coating rates for each site.

Our partner firm IBEX Consulting Engineers Limited can also undertake in-situ soils’ thermal resistivity tests in accordance with IEEE Standard 442 or D5334-14 across the UK. Power cables require that the heat generated by the cable in service is dissipated into the environment without overheating the cable’s insulation. Therefore, the underlying natural soil deposits’ thermal resistivity is mandatory in the event of cable current rating calculations as well as designing cable trench geometry in accordance with IEEE Standard 442 or D5334-14. Highly organic soils and peat with high Soil Thermal Resistivity (STR) can inhibit heat transmission through the soil, therefore the STR of the underlying soils is dependent on the composition of the materials encountered as well as the physical parameters of the soil such as moisture content and density. Soil sampling is necessary along the cable routes where it is unclear as to whether the natural soil deposits is free of substantial organic or peat content at the proposed cable burial depths.

IBEX Solar and Piling Ltd (IBEX S&P) is leading industry experts in ground related investigations and testing. Contact us today to book your Pull-Out tests or Soil Thermal Resistivity Tests.

TECHNICAL MEMOIR

Why loading/unloading cycles are not required for driven steel piles?

With the exception of some of UK sites, the vast majority of the UK’s solar sites are situated on the clayey soils and subsequently steel piles are being installed into the clay mostly in the UK. In addition, the clay consists of four minerals, namely Montmorillonite, Illite, Kaolinite and Quartz. More Montmorillonite the clay contains, it becomes more structured and more subject to volume change potential:

Silica Sheet

Octahedral (Gibbsite) Sheet

The clay’s minerology comprised of Silica Tetrahedron and Aluminium Octahedron form molecular “sheets” which they both together constitute a structured ‘clay’. Whether the tested clayey soils or granular soils has a very high strength/extremely low strength or loose/dense,

as the tested soils are strained it will losses its peak strength and it will eventually converge to some residual shear strength meaning the matrix of the soils’ particles become so disturbed that the initial relative density or the initial state of that soil matrix does not matter anymore and so this converge point called “Critical State Soil Mechanics (CSSM)”.

The CSSM means that the state of the soil where it’s matrix is now structureless or markedly deformed and it corresponds to a ‘residual strength’ of soil. In short, once the testing piles have started ‘creeping’ or constant displacement within ‘residual strength’ zone as similar to Figure 1, there will not be necessary to reload the testing piles within this strata because once the soil particles around the testing pile’s shaft

become slippery or lost contact particle to particle, the friction between the pile’s shaft and soil particles or matrix is now lower than its initial state. Therefore, It is IBEX opinion that loading/unloading cycles of steel piles are not required within UK’s soils.

Some useful advice to EPC Solar Firms Prior to the commencement of In-situ Pile Tests:

Ensure that a robust Phase 1 (non-intrusive desk studies) and Phase 2 Ground Investigation Surveys are undertaken across the site to mitigate the site-specific geo-hazards (e.g. mining risks, shallow bedrock, soft/loose soils, extremely soft soils, peat, disturbed soils, UXO risks, landfill, solution features, voids or the like);
Select your manufacturing firm and their section profile piles;
Ensure to organise delivery of testing piles in advance prior to tendering process, geometry or section profiles of the selected piles, the selected manufacturer might increase/decrease their fees for the validation tests or in-situ axial loading tests;
Ideal testing piles’ heights standing above ground (exposed height) is 1.0m, ensure that the testing piles’ overall lengths (embedded + exposed) have been calculated accurately and cut the testing piles precisely within the facility of the selected manufacturing firm of your choice. Due to health and safety concerns, it is IBEX opinion that cutting testing piles on site may pose a major risk to the workers or technicians due to the potential uneven surface and subsequent trip and slip hazards;
Make sure that the selected testing piles have sufficient thickness (≥3mm) and durable steel grade (≥S300) was selected, any weak steel grades or thin steel piles could be easily damaged or bent during ramming which may adversely impact the in-situ pull-out testing procedure and/or may resulted in costly delays;
Allow some spare testing piles as ‘contingency’ in the event of impenetrable obstructions and/or damages during ramming;
Allow an additional budget for a specialist contractor or utility surveyors to mark and scan the locations in order to detect and avoid the buried utility services using CAT & GENNY as well as Ground Penetration Radar (GPR); and
Ensure that long grass or dense vegetation on site have been removed from the ground surface to speed up in-situ verification tests process (e.g. pull-out tests). Long grass or dense/overgrown vegetation may also interfere the GPR scanning which is essential to detect and avoid damaging the underlying buried water mains, plastic pipes, cast concrete sewage network, land drainage pipes, PVC gas pipes and other infrastructure assets have not been mapped on site.

Coming Soon

In House Utility &
CCTV Services

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