#PowerOnTogether

They may sound cliché, but the phrases “We’re all in this together!” and “This is war!” are rallying cries that we can all get behind. Nearly every company associated with the power industry is doing something special to meet the challenges presented by the novel coronavirus disease COVID-19.

Some are giving large sums of money to charity or providing relief to communities in other ways. Others are pivoting operations to manufacture products that aren’t typically part of their business or maintain equipment that is in short supply. Whatever the case, people are stepping up to meet the need in any way they can, often without the expectation of compensation.

While the list of companies doing their part to help others during this time of crisis is virtually endless, POWER offers a few examples here in the hope that their stories will inspire readers in some way and provide encouragement during this challenging time. Additionally, we’re sharing good news through social media channels whenever we hear about it, using the hashtag #PowerOnTogether. Follow POWER on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram to stay up-to-date on everything that’s happening in the power industry.

— Aaron Larson is POWER’s executive editor (@AaronL_Power, @POWERmagazine).

National blood supplies are at an all-time low across the United States. While the American Red Cross sponsored blood drives continue to be cancelled amid the coronavirus outbreak, ProEnergy answered the call by making the decision to step up and sponsor an employee blood drive to combat the emergency need.

A March 17, 2020, press release from the American Red Cross noted that to date, nearly 2,700 of its blood drives have been canceled across the country due to concerns about congregating at workplaces, college campuses and schools amidst the coronavirus outbreak.

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“During the COVID-19 crisis, governments and companies are having to make difficult choices, balancing people’s safety with economic livelihood. ABB is committed to supporting both: protect people, while helping businesses to stay operational during these challenging times,” said Peter Terwiesch, President Industrial Automation, ABB. “Remote services and digital solutions can make a major contribution to keep people safe, production running, and critical supply chains and economic livelihood preserved.”

As businesses are being directed to limit site work, the need remains to ensure that assets continue to operate across utilities, energy, process, hybrid and maritime industries, safeguarding food processing, power generation, water management, tissue production, data centers and the transportation of goods.

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This moment is like nothing we’ve seen before in our lifetimes—impacting all our communities and disrupting lives everywhere. We are all concerned for our loved ones and our future. In our business, given the nature of what we do and, in turn, the basic but essential actions we help enable others to do—turn on the lights, refrigerate food, receive important medical care—our employees continue to play a crucial role every day.

Our priority remains the health and safety of our teams, and we have put extra precautions in place across our business to protect employees. But this is not easy work to do, and I want to extend my deep gratitude to our Gas Power team, inclusive of our FieldCore team—our 100% GE-owned Field Services organization of 12,000+ that leads our field efforts across 60+ countries in the world.

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Power management company Eaton and its partner electrical contractors and distributors recently completed a construction project to build two new field hospitals in Wuhan, China. The project delivered an additional 2,500 hospital beds to the region, which has been considered ground zero for the COVID-19 global pandemic.

Eaton’s energy solutions are helping provide electricity to the Huoshenshan and Leishenshan hospitals. The facilities were built in just 10 days.

“When the request for help came in, it was the day before our Spring Festival, China’s most important holiday,” Howard Liu, president of Eaton’s Electrical Sector—Asia-Pacific region, told POWER. “Despite being out on leave as is normal during this time, our team members from logistics and manufacturing, as well as our partner distributors and electrical contractors responded right away. We leveraged all of our available resources across many departments, offices and cities to help deliver the additional hospital beds in the country’s fight against the fast-spreading virus.”

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Drive one hour south of Birmingham and you will find the not-so-small town of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, county population of more than 207,000. Known as the home of the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa is rich in history, arts, young professionals, rooted families, and famous Southern hospitality. At the heart of this college town is a culture of trade workers and quality craftsmanship.

At the edge of downtown Tuscaloosa sits Dixie Mechanical Inc., a mechanical contractor with local roots and a national footprint. Dixie Mechanical serves as an industrial fabrication contractor on projects with the nation’s largest engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) firms. Since 2002, the fabrication shop, project managers, estimators, draftsmen, and the entire team have been providing quality craftsmanship and project management to clients working on some of the largest power, energy, oil, gas, and chemical construction projects that keep America running. These projects are essential to the nation’s infrastructure.

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ClearSpan Structures has quickly adjusted their manufacturing facility to provide governments, medical centers and communities with rapidly deployable disaster response structures and medical buildings. ClearSpan is now able to ship these buildings in fewer than 24 hours, and because of this quick turn around, the company already has buildings being used to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The versatility of these structures makes them ideal for temporary medical facilities, drive through COVID-19 testing, temporary emergency housing and much more.

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