Takeuchi-US has transformed two of its facilities to feature solar panels that account for 85% of the company's energy needs at both plants.
Takeuchi facilities have aimed to go carbon neutral, first in Japan and then in the U.S. It installed energy-efficient solar panels at its locations in Pendergrass, Georgia and Moore, South Carolina.
The new solar panels will cover about 85% of the energy needs at those two facilities. The remaining 15% will be sourced as green energy from local electrical suppliers. To help offset the solar installation project’s costs, Takeuchi will apply for tax credits that the Inflation Reduction Act provides for eligible renewable energy projects.
“We quickly learned that a solar project of this magnitude takes a lot of time and planning,” says Angy Lamb, manager of operational services at Takeuchi-US. “We began meeting with solar energy companies in late summer 2022. Each company had to come on site to tour each building and evaluate the roof structures and electrical systems before drawing up preliminary design suggestions and providing estimates. That process alone took several months.”
In March 2023, Takeuchi chose Renu Energy Solutions to install solar panels at both the Georgia and South Carolina facilities. The next project phase involved getting the appropriate permits from local government authorities as well as interconnection agreements with local power companies. Renu took care of those details, and in September 2023, all the necessary panels and hardware were shipped to Pendergrass and Moore. Soon after, Renu began installing the systems with almost no disturbance to business operations other than the final “tie-in” which requires a building’s power to be shut down while the solar panels are connected to its electrical system.
“The first building to ‘go live’ was our South Carolina office building in February 2024,” says Jeff Stewart, president of Takeuchi-US. “That was quickly followed by our Training Center in Pendergrass, Georgia and then the manufacturing plant in South Carolina. Finally, the machine distribution center, corporate office and main distribution center in Pendergrass came online in early July.”
The company has also converted its main distribution center in Georgia and plant in South Carolina to energy-efficient LED lighting, and its secondary distribution center is almost entirely illuminated by LEDs. Takeuchi’s three-year-old Training Center in Georgia was built with all high-efficiency systems, including LED fixtures. Later this year, Takeuchi will convert all lighting in its corporate offices over to LED, and in 2025, it will convert the remaining portion of the lighting in its secondary warehouse to LED, greatly reducing its electric bills.
“One element of Takeuchi’s corporate commitment is cooperation,” Stewart says. “In that commitment, we pledge to ‘thrive in conjunction with society, cultivating a mindset based on harmony and thoughtfulness.’ We put this into action by partnering with the global community and by being good environmental stewards. Moving our facilities to a carbon-neutral position helps us live out our commitments and achieve our goals by being a better global partner. We try to take steps that will ensure the long-term success of not only Takeuchi, but also those who work with and around us.”
