On Thursday, there was a celebration to welcome a new solar array to Presque Isle. This solar array at beach 8 will save the park $30,000 a year in energy costs.

"For our park budget, it’s great. It allows us to do other things with that budgetary number, but for the citizens of the commonwealth, it’s great too because that’s less money than going into purchasing power from a commonwealth perspective,” Park Operations Manager Matt Greene said. 

Secretary for the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Cindy Adams Dunn said the array is a large benefit to the environment. 

"We want to have cleaner air, pure water, etc. So solar power is one good way to get there,” Dunn said. 

Dunn said it can be an example for visitors of what they can do to help conserve energy and cut on costs.   

This park is the biggest visitation park in our whole system with 4 million visitors per year. So, if those folks see this and take some of that idea home or back to their own businesses, back to their own park then maybe we’ll see win, win, win. See people do this beyond the park and do it at home,” Dunn said. 

Park operations manager Matt Greene says it's important to the park to be the lead on using alternative energy. 

"We should be the ones utilizing all the different types of alternative energy in our operation. We already have an electric motorcycle we use in operation. We have lots of different electric tools and equipment that we use. DCNR is phasing in more and more electric fleets everyday. To be able to do a project like this, solar array. It takes the park to net zero. That's another layer of that conservation mindedness that we’re going to have at DCNR,” Greene said.