Boeing powers up solar rooftop

After the week Boeing's had, it's understandable that the dedication of the 10-acre solar farm on the roof of its North Charleston final assembly building Friday was largely out of sight and without fanfare.

Under other circumstances, maybe the ceremonial flip-switching for the Southeast's largest such installation, which at peak production could power 250 homes, would involve more than a handful of SCE&G and Boeing executives touring the roof and then meeting the media at the edge of the campus.

But this week, the event seemed almost like an afterthought. Here's what outshined the 2.6 megawatt sun-powered generator:

On Tuesday, American Airlines, one of Boeing's biggest customers for decades and the scheduled recipient for hundreds of planes on order, filed for bankruptcy. Executives at the airline and airframer insisted little would change, but with rumors of a potential American Airlines-U.S. Airways merger, there remained more questions than answers.

On Wednesday, Boeing and its biggest union announced a grand bargain in the form of a four-year contract extension that guaranteed the next version of the ever-popular 737 would be produced in Washington state and seemed to spell the end of the controversial National Labor Relations Board complaint against Boeing and its North Charleston plant.

And on Thursday, Boeing opened another huge factory in North Charleston, the Interiors Responsibility Center, that will build stow bins and other cabin components for the 787 Dreamliners that are assembled beneath the solar farm.

"We've been really focused on making history," Marco Cavazzoni, vice president and general manager of Boeing South Carolina Final Assembly and Delivery, said Friday. "That's been throughout. So today's just another day. Let's get the job done."

Cavazzoni and Scana Corp. CEO Kevin Marsh would not disclose the financial terms of their 20-year contract. But they did say the rooftop system, which Scana's South Carolina Electric & Gas unit owns and all of whose power will be sold to Boeing, is a first both for the aerospace giant and the utility.

The solar sheets, which were installed from May 16 to October 28, are part of Boeing's pledge to get all of its power from renewable sources, making it the first SCE&G customer to do so, Marsh said.

The plane-making facility will get up to 20 percent of its power from the more than 18,000 thin-film photovoltaic solar laminates and the rest from the KapStone paper plant in North Charleston that produces biomass that can be burned for steam power.

But while passersby can often smell the fumes wafting from the paper facility, Boeing's 120-foot-high generator can't even be seen, except from the air.

"You wouldn't know standing here there's anything on the roof," Marsh said.

Reach Brendan Kearney at 937-5906 and follow him on Twitter at @kearney_brendan.