In a market where speed, excitement and sometimes greed can push developers into rash decisions, we revisit an often downplayed step: topographical and geotechnical surveys. This article explores why a deep understanding of the terrain is essential. Without it, any renewable project risks floundering – literally and figuratively. Topographical and geotechnical studies are still treated superficially in many projects in Romania, even though they underpin the whole chain of subsequent decisions – from planning and approval, to bankability, execution and sometimes even project survival. This article is part of an editorial series produced with the support of MIRA Renewables, designed to provide industry professionals with clear guidelines on what a quality renewables project means in practice.
What you can’t see can bring down what you’ve built
In renewables, one of the biggest pitfalls is the illusion that a project well drawn on paper is automatically feasible on the ground. It is precisely what escapes the eye – the actual shape of the land, overlapping plots, roads used “by agreement” but not built – that can completely block an investment. Topographical surveys are often reduced to mere bureaucratic formalities, sometimes carried out without a field presence. It’s an oversight that has already taken its toll on the market: projects delayed, costs exploding, turbines never reaching their intended location.
A real-life case from a wind project shows just how badly things can be affected: the planned cable route intersected a canal that was missing from the original plans. The topographical survey, done in the office, had not taken into account the actual logging roads. When it was necessary to transport the equipment, it was discovered that the road crossed a neighbor’s plot who had not given his permission. The bank identified legal obstacles and suspended financing. The entire budget had to be recalculated. It was a painful but necessary correction.
The mentality of treating the land as a mere support rather than the physical and legal foundation of the investment persists in many teams. Essential aspects such as neighborhoods or the legal status of roads are often ignored. The savings made by a summary study come back in the form of unexpected costs: reconfigured roads, redesigns, legal bottlenecks. Once caught in the documentation, a poorly done study cannot be corrected without disproportionate efforts.
What a good survey is – and why it matters so early on
A good topographic survey is not just a beautifully drawn map. It requires a thorough understanding of the land and its surroundings, a rigorous land survey, and careful documentation of access roads – whether agricultural or for transporting equipment. All this ensures precise positioning of turbines or panels and allows for accurate dismantling, avoiding taking more land out of agricultural use than necessary.
The method you choose for surveying makes all the difference. Using Lidar drones provides superior resolution and can identify key details such as slope differences or swampy areas. “Surveyors give you two options: the traditional method or the drone method. The difference in cost is about €6,000,” explains one specialist, based on experience from a real-life case . Choosing a cheaper method, with points 200 meters away, can miss major hurdles. The difference between a bankable project and a critically risky one can lie in a square meter forgotten in a corner of a plot.
The timing of the study also matters. If you’ve already started the planning documentation with the wrong data, you may not be able to go back without redoing the whole procedure. Mistakes become difficult to correct once the layout has been drawn and cable routes defined. A good project starts with a clear view of the terrain – ideally millimeter by millimeter.
‘Invisible’ standards – how to recognize a professional approach
At first glance, two projects may look the same: the same site, the same technology, the same beautifully colored maps. But the difference between a promising project and a truly bankable one lies in things that are not immediately apparent. In the accuracy of the measurements, in the resolution of the topographic survey, in the depth of the geo-drilling, in the way the developer understands and manages the risks from the very beginning. A professional approach is not content with “business as usual”, but anticipates obstacles and resolves them early, even if it means extra costs and more detailed work.
Professionalism is also seen in the developer’s ability to understand what they are subcontracting. If you don’t know what to ask, you won’t know what you’re getting. And if you blindly rely on service providers – be they surveyors or geologists – without checking the method, coverage and results, then you’re taking risks without knowing them. “A serious developer isn’t necessarily a specialist in everything, but they have people on their team who know how to ask the right questions and evaluate the answers.” Quality standards are not always visible – but in their absence, costs become painfully tangible.
A good practice is the early involvement of specialists: civil and electrical structural engineers, who can correctly interpret the results of the geotechnical survey and integrate them into the design of the DTAC. It’s not enough to have a signed report – you need to understand what it means. Developers who don’t check the methodologies of subcontractors, who don’t know how to ask the right questions, often end up paying the price of costly ignorance. Technical rigor is not a fad. It’s the difference between a foundation that holds up and one that fails.
Geotechnical survey: seeing what you can’t see
If the topographic survey tells you what the land looks like, the geotechnical survey tells you whether the soil can support what you want to build. In the case of wind projects, the question is far from rhetorical. Unlike photovoltaics – where the structures are lighter, the foundations simpler and the risks lower – a wind farm involves massive constructions, with heights of more than 200 meters and weights that transmit directly into the ground. Under these conditions, detailed knowledge of what lies underground becomes essential, not only for execution, but also for long-term safety and project bankability.
One of the biggest risks comes from the tendency to “simplify” the geotechnical survey. Often, instead of drilling at each turbine siting point, two or three boreholes are chosen over the entire area and the rest is assumed to be similar. Or, even worse, instead of actual boreholes, sonars or surface radars are used that do not provide a complete picture of the geologic structures. But the subsurface can change dramatically even over small distances: a clay layer, a swampy area or an unidentified water table can compromise the entire foundation. In a real-life case , on the same plot, “only 50 meters apart, we encountered two completely different types of soil, which means two types of foundation”. If the soil is good, you can go for a classic raft foundation. On the other hand, if the soil is poor (unstable, with swampy areas or a deep resistance layer), more complex solutions are needed: drilled piles, prefabricated piles or even hybrid foundations (raft + piles). These options significantly increase the cost, but are essential for stability. “You can have a perfectly drawn design, but if the soil is not what you assumed, you have nothing to build on.”
International standards for modern large-scale turbines indicate boreholes 40 to 50 meters deep. In reality, there are projects that have only drilled down to 20 meters to cut costs. The price difference is real – between €500 and €800 per borehole, depending on the depth, the number of boreholes and the lab tests needed. But the risk difference is also huge. Without proper drilling, the foundation can be wrongly designed and delays, changes of technical solutions and, in extreme cases, the impossibility of construction can occur during the execution phase. “For photovoltaics, the requirements are significantly lower, but there are hidden risks there too, especially in uneven or poorly drained terrain.”
What you don’t know can cost you your project
A project doesn’t necessarily die in Excel, but in a bridge too low, a missing land registry or swampy ground 10 meters from the turbine site. All too often, the reality on the ground contradicts the optimism in the plans. There are projects that have made it as far as planning permission only to discover that the equipment cannot be transported to the site, the roads have to be completely rebuilt or at unbearable cost, the turbines cannot be installed on the ground discovered on site. Such situations are not hypothetical – they are realities that have stalled projects and caused hundreds of thousands of euros in losses.
When you prepare in advance, together with transportation solution providers and public institutions, solutions can be found. An example comes from the Aeolian area, where an agabaritic transport was blocked by a bridge that was too low. It was necessary to cut 15 centimeters off the height of the road in order to get the transport through. If the problem had not been anticipated, the project risked falling through and the turbines, already purchased, being resold at a discount for another project.
Road survey display studies are used – an advanced simulation, made with special vehicles (like Google Maps), which drive along the planned route and point out all the obstacles: height of bridges, position of pillars, cables, impossible turns. Although it is a good international practice, this type of study, ignored mainly for budgetary reasons, is only just starting to become standard in Romania,
Costs only really become relevant when the delays start. A full geotechnical study, including boreholes at the appropriate depths (30-50 m) needed for a 50 MW wind farm, requires a budget of around €80,000. Sounds like a lot – but not doing so can lead to delays of up to six months and additional costs of over 400,000 euros. Not to mention the risks of a bottleneck or even the impossibility of selling the project to a serious investor. “You can be lucky and have no problems. But if you do, you won’t be able to correct it without massive losses,” warns one specialist. In science, luck is not strategy – and in energy, it does not substitute for competence.
Another example, perhaps less spectacular but just as costly, is mining roads. Many of them have been in use “by agreement” for decades, but are not registered and legally do not exist. If permission to use these roads is not obtained at the authorization stage, the project may be blocked. What’s more, to transport heavy equipment, the developer has to budget for resurfacing these roads – paving, widening, strengthening. All this needs to be included in the topo and geo surveys so that expensive surprises don’t pop up just when construction should start.
When it’s beyond repair
There are projects that seem to have it all – technical connection approval (ATR), construction authorization (CA), firm promises of delivery – but in reality are not worth much. Not because they lack paperwork, but because they lack roots. The lack of solid topographical and geotechnical surveys, the lack of legal clarity on land or physical access can turn a seemingly mature project into a “dead” one in the eyes of serious investors. “You can still get it back on track, but only by retaking costly and time-consuming steps – which dramatically reduces the attractiveness of the project to investors.” In the face of thorough due diligence, decorative documents don’t hold up.
That’s why professionalizing the market starts – literally – from the ground up. Renewable energy that we want to be sustainable, secure and competitive relies on a deep understanding of the terrain. Real data, accurate measurements, well-understood soils, precise topographies, cleared roads and drilled boreholes drilled where they need to be drilled – all these are the expression of a genuine respect for money, time and resources.
This article is part of an editorial series produced with the support of MIRA Renewables. The “Quality RES Project” is aimed at all those who want to better understand how sustainable projects are built – from the perspective of those who take on not only financial investment, but also the responsibility of working to sound professional standards, with respect for their partners and a genuine interest in educating the market. The common objective is to highlight good practices that can become the norm in a rapidly transforming market.
