GE Says Smart Grid Equal to 41GW of Power Plants

By Michael Kanellos

Make no mistake: General Electric (GE) is a big proponent of smart grids.

"We can probably improve the efficiency of the grid by 5 percent," said Steve Fludder, vice president of Ecomagination at GE, during an interview at the Cleantech Forum taking place this week in San Francisco. Five percent doesn't sound like much, but it translates to 41,000 megawatts of generating capacity, or 41 gigawatts.

"In terms of reducing carbon emissions, it is a big deal," he added.

Efficiency – along with carbon reduction and water – is one of the primary pillars of the ecoimagination group and smart grids are a big part of the efficiency story. The group almost functions like a "best of" group within GE. Jet engines, wind turbines and other various products are selected and branded as Ecomagination products if they provide significant environmental and economic benefits. (Certification for the program is conducted by a third-party company.) The company then totals up the revenue from those profits on an annual basis to see how its environmental push is doing. Last year, the products in the group accounted approximately $18 billion in revenue. The goal is to boost the figure to $25 billion by 2010.

GE is conducting several trials on smart grids in the U.S. and internationally. Fludder's organization is also working with GE's appliance division so that intelligence can be added to refrigerators, washing machines and other devices. Although appliance makers have been somewhat reluctant to Internet-enable fridges and other appliances in the past, demand response systems and other smart grid programs will change that.

Just as important, consumers now want more eco-friendly products. They may only be willing to pay a moderate premium at best for them, but a change in mentality has occurred.

"It will become part of the market. Something has happened in the mind of consumers. Climate change has to be addressed. We have to be more responsible stewards with regard to natural resources," he said. "Scale begets cost-effectiveness and cost-effectiveness begets wider adoption but on top of that people are emotionally engaged... The power of this may surprise us all."

In water, GE is starting to look for fundamentally different solutions to purification and desalination. Some water processing "has been done the same way for a long time," he said.

"We can basically have the ability to do anything with water," he said. "We see the waste stream as the source of water for [relieving] stress on traditional sources."

GE is also examining ways to produce equipment for carbon capture.

We'll post more from our interview with Fludder in a subsequent story.

Comments

[john s. gordon:]

long-distance high-voltage transmission by superconducting DC (LN2 cooled) will save a lot of wasted energy.
> jack

Feb 25 08:53 AM

[Jim Regan:]

As GE says on their corporate presentations for the Ecomagination team... "green is green!" It's really great to see them step up to the plate on the grid technology, and the 5% efficient improvement seems like a fantastic goal for the company.

Feb 25 09:39 AM

[kmca1989:]

tragically 60% of GE functions as a large bank - it takes a lot of financing to afford many of their large-scale products and services - and they won't turn around until banks do. :(

Feb 25 11:05 AM

[TinyTim:]

Aside from a mktg pitch for GE & Ecomagination, where's the content?
Sure 5% = 41GW which is significant.
What specifically is GE doing to make it happen other than jumping on the bandwagon?

They should have been doing smart appliances years ago for the Smart Home.

Other than meters to provide info remotely in both directions, the Smart Grid is hype. And these meters will only be effective if consumers care about the data.

Increase the diameter of all tranmission line conductors (ACSR) by 41% and you basically cut transmission losses in half.

Feb 25 02:04 PM

[Joulie:]

Thank you Greentech media.

Question:

What is the unified field theory of carbon credits vs. KwH vs. money vs. global warming? How does this benefit GE?

Feb 25 02:38 PM

[Rob Delsman:]

Typical power system efficiency runs at about 90% (best case) with losses of 10% due to electrical phenomenon such as hysteresis (losses due to Iron cores in electrical apparatus) and a lagging power factor. Also, as pointed out in a comment above, heat is another form of "watt less" power that is wasted. As far as a smart grid goes, a claim of an overall 5% improvement sounds like greenspeak to me. Energy efficiency is the best start as it requires less capital investment and produces a faster measurable return.

Feb 25 04:44 PM