Supporting Our Customers in Accelerating the Energy Transition

Earlier today, I spoke on a panel as part of the US Chamber of Commerce’s Global Forum on Economic Recovery in the wake of the pandemic. The panel focused on how we can use ongoing efforts to diversify the energy mix to drive economic growth. 

At GE, we believe that climate change is an urgent global priority that requires governments and businesses working in partnership to accelerate action. Together with our customers, GE powers one-third of the world’s energy. We helped create the modern electric grid more than 100 years ago and innovation continues to play a key role across our company as we develop the technology we need to reduce emissions today.

We want to help decarbonize the energy sector while at the same time ensuring sustainable, affordable and reliable electricity – key to ensuring economic recovery and growth around the world. To do this most effectively and efficiently, we believe requires a combination of wind, gas and a modernized grid.

Despite amazing recent growth and an even brighter future, renewables cannot solve this challenge alone. But here are four things we’re doing to help ensure we’re doing to support our customers in bringing more renewable energy online as quickly as possible:

1) Building, servicing, and maintaining a global fleet of renewable energy assets. We do this each day by manufacturing and installing equipment for new onshore and offshore wind farms, servicing and repowering the global wind power fleet, and building new and rehabilitating existing hydropower assets. 

The world is demanding clean energy and that means our equipment will be used by customers who are playing a leading role in helping countries across the globe meet their emissions goals.

2) Reducing the cost of renewable energy so that we can bring even more of it online quickly. Building new renewable energy is already cheaper that new conventional generation (fossil fuel based) options – without subsidies – in many markets. We are introducing new onshore and offshore wind turbines that are able to capture more energy from the same amount of wind, driving down costs even further. Innovation in manufacturing technologies, turbine design and wind farm optimization are strategic priorities for us and key levers in reducing costs further. We are reducing costs every day to make renewable energy more cost-effective and more efficient so it can be affordably implemented across the globe.

3) Making renewable energy resources function more like traditional, ‘baseload’ power generation sources. Battery storage is a key factor for the future. In addition, our hydro business serves as a significant source of storage, both in the flexibility it gives system operators in addressing the variability of wind and solar, and in the form of long duration storage through hydro pumped storage. We’re also increasing ‘system capacity factors,’ in part through hybridization of solar, wind, and battery storage so that you can use power from wind and solar farms in a more dispatchable manner.

It is a major priority for us to advance solutions for energy storage so we can use renewable energy just like we use baseload power. We are already doing it with hydro storage systems, but we are also working on more advances so that we can make renewables work even when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining.

4) Ensuring grid resiliency and efficiency, while also maintaining reliable grid operations, as more variable renewable energy is brought online. A modernized grid is critical to not only managing the increasing amount of renewable energy we generate, but to helping mitigate other challenges like more severe weather and increased demand. In that regard, our Grid Solutions team is focused on helping our customers accelerate the energy transition by providing them with the hardware complemented by digital solutions and services needed to deliver affordable, reliable and accessible electricity. Key examples include: High Voltage DC (HVDC), Flexible AC Transmission System (FACTS), and Power Quality Product technologies along with our digital substation and digital services offerings.

One of the most important challenges the expansion of renewables face are the transmission constraints that will limit our ability to accommodate higher renewable penetration into the grid. We are accelerating the energy transition for our utility customers through better equipment and digital solutions that help them deliver affordable, sustainable and reliable electricity to consumers that are demanding it.

From developing some of the first electric grids under Edison, to creating cutting-edge technology for the grid challenges of today, GE is proud to be playing a part in helping our customers – and consumers everywhere – harness more efficient, sustainable energy for greater economic opportunity.

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