GE to sink $1 billion into energy efficiency, storage venture

Dive Brief:

GE will develop a new business arm focused on energy efficiency, generation and storage for about $1 billion, the company announced last week at its Minds + Machines 2015 event in California, Energy Efficiency Markets reports. The company plans to blend in its financing with GE’s physical and digital capabilities with the new venture.
In a separate announcement, GE Power & Water launched a digital power plant to provide what the company is calling "data-driven power generation," and estimaed it would save the power industry $75 billion.
Exelon and PSEG are both partnering with GE on a so-called Digital Power Plant, to show how generators can get as much efficiency as possible out of their facilities.

Dive Insight:

General Electric last week said it would develop a new business arm aimed at energy efficiency, putting $1 billion into the venture. The new business group will focus on commercial and industrial, utility and municipal customers, providing them with both hardware and software.

More details are expected in the coming weeks.

In a seperate annnouncement made by GE Power & Water, the company said it would be working with Exelon Generation and PSEG on a digital power plant that would be powered by GE's Predix platform.

"The world is expected to need 50% more power over the next 20 years, including providing electricity for the 1.3 billion people without access today,” Steve Bolze, president and CEO of GE Power & Water, said in a statement. “At the same time, the electricity industry is undergoing a radical digital transformation unlocking whole new opportunities."

The new software involved will allow the digital power plants to be as responsive as batteries,opening up new opportunities in grid operators’ capacity and ancillary services markets, said a company spokesman. GE said it expects central generation of energy to account for up to 95% of the energy mix by 2025, and the new product would allow industry to optimize infrastructure and minimize impacts. Savings to the power industry will reach $75 billion in avoided generation, GE said.

"Imagine the benefits to our global economy and society when the power source of the world's economy, electricity, is as digitally connected and efficient as the modern technologies dependent on that electrical power," Bolze said.

Exelon Generation inked an agreement with GE for software that would target nuclear, gas and wind generation. PSEG tapped GE for better reliability at gas facilities.

“For merchant generators, every bit of efficiency and productivity matters to our bottom line,” said Rich Lopriore, president of PSEG Fossil LLC. “Having the best power generation technology — both physical and digital — is critical to our competitiveness."