Eaton Corporation has two solar installations underway in western Pennsylvania, and has recently completed a third to power its own facilities, provide an opportunity for research and development and “help spread the solar message,” says Dan Carnovale, a company executive.
Construction has just begun on a 1.3-megawatt solar array adjacent to Eaton's 500,000-square-foot plant in Vanport Township in Beaver County. The project, which will be the largest in western Pennsylvania, will incorporate more than 10,000 solar panels, Eaton's solar inverters and the heavy-duty circuit breakers manufactured at the plant. When complete, the installation will help power the factory.
A much smaller, 250-kilowatt rooftop installation is being built atop Eaton's Moon Township building, headquarters for the company's electrical group, which Carnovale notes accounted for half of the company's $16 billion in 2011 sales. In Warrendale, Eaton has built a small under-50-kilowatt demonstration facility, including vehicle chargers, for testing and as a “show and tell kind of thing,” says Carnovale. “The point is to do some testing and demonstrate these [products] that we offer.”
Eaton, based in Cleveland, has a Pennsylvania workforce of about 2,000, out of 73,000 worldwide. Carnovale expects that the large Vanport Township array will bring with it several ongoing maintenance and monitoring jobs.
Source: Daniel Carnovale, Eaton Corp.
Writer: Elise Vider