The recent announcement by Eaton Corp., Cleveland, that it had won $20 million turn-key contract for the design and installation of a 3.2MW photovoltaic system for the Albuquerque Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Health Care System is the latest example of the company's intense focus on federal work and in particular projects funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).
During the past two years, Eaton has won contracts worth millions of dollars with federal agencies and organizations, including $8 million in electrical products and services for the San Antonio Military Medical Center on the Fort Sam Houston Army base in Texas; supplying and installing $2.5 million in electrical products and services to upgrade the Hartwell Dam hydroelectric power plant in Georgia; supplying hybrid electric power systems for 35 fuel-efficient shuttle buses purchased by the U.S. General Services Administration for use on U.S. military bases; and providing energy conservation services at the United States Postal Service (USPS). In addition, Eaton has a long-standing contract with the General Services Administration (GSA) where government agencies can shop for more than 130,000 of the company's products and services and has selected 29 electrical distributors as “Recovery Partners” to provide local support for government contracts.
Eaton has also won government funding from the Department of Energy (DOE) for its green R&D efforts, including the improvement of energy efficiency in the information technology industry and for its hybrid electric vehicle initiative. Eaton's efforts to collaborate with Hewlett-Packard on a federally funded project to improve energy efficiency in information technology (IT) systems are one of 14 projects the DOE chose in that arena and received a $7.4 million grant. The joint project with HP will develop a fully enclosed IT rack system that provides its own internal power and cooling. High voltage and chilled water will act as the primary inputs to the system and it will also accept alternative energy power sources, such as wind and solar power. Eaton also said in a press release that its truck and electrical businesses will support a $45.4 million grant to produce plug-in hybrid electric power systems for 378 vehicles that's part of $2.4 billion ARRA grants.
The PV project in New Mexico will include car port and roof-mounted arrays and a building-integrated system to help reduce demand from the local utility grid. When completed it will be the largest PV system in New Mexico.
In a release announcing the award, Paul Cody, Eaton's vice president and general manager of Electrical Service and Systems Division, said, “Eaton is now fully engaged in the sustainable energy market. This major project will combine our expertise in electrical components and power distribution with comprehensive solar power system design and installation.”