Case Study: Mortenson Construction achieves optimized wind‑farm road alignments and rapid cost analysis with Trimble Quantm

Trimble Quantm Optimizes High-quality Alignments for Challenging Wind Farm Road

Mortenson Construction, a leading renewable-energy contractor, was bidding on a challenging wind farm in the Canadian Rockies that required about 80–90 km of mountain roads to link five ridges and support ~100 turbines. Rugged terrain, steep grades, switchbacks and heavy equipment constraints made alignment planning complex and time-consuming using traditional iterative methods, and the team needed a competitive, cost-effective proposal without months of delay.

Using Trimble Quantm, Mortenson’s VDC team generated roughly 300 feasible 3D alignments and about 30 detailed scenarios in a day and a half, enabling real‑time quantity and cost comparisons and collaborative what‑if analysis. The optimized routes reduced one road segment from 7 km to 4 km, lowered earthworks and switchbacks, improved safety and equipment access, and produced faster, more accurate proposals and measurable construction cost savings.

Mortenson Construction

Sera Maloney

Director of Integrated Construction