General Electric Co (GE) and its venture capital partners recently announced a collective investment of $55 million in leading power grid technology companies as part of the $200-million ‘GE Ecomagination Challenge’.
This is the first of several rounds of innovation funding planned by GE and its partners as part of the challenge - a global commitment to accelerate the development and deployment of power grid technology through open collaboration.
GE says that it has formed and accelerated a dozen new partnerships to date with entrants to develop and commercialise technologies vital to helping build the next-generation power grid. These technologies include energy storage, utility security, energy management software and electric vehicle charging services. GE expects these markets to grow rapidly into a ‘$20-billion opportunity’ by 2015.
Twelve concepts have been selected for partnerships and GE is actively negotiating investments and other commercial agreements with the companies and academic partners, including two co-investments with venture capital partners. Five of the twelve concepts are summarised below.
* FMC-Tech Ltd, Shannon, Ireland (intelligent sensor technologies) - This concerns a power-line monitoring system for medium voltage networks and will serve as a ‘nervous system’ for the smart grid and has applications for GE’s Smart Grid Delivery Optimization. It integrates overhead line sensing, data storage and wireless communication to a local controller to detect and locate faults in the smart grid and manage distribution communications, providing a platform for the present and future needs of the network.
* Scientific Conservation, San Francisco, California, USA (energy management systems and software) - This platform monitors and manages energy drift in commercial buildings through predictive maintenance of core energy systems: heating, ventilation, air conditioning, refrigeration, lighting, controls and renewable sources. Using its patent-pending diagnostics, it typically improves efficiency - covering the cost of installation in less than two years. The technology has applications for GE’s Intelligent Platforms building management software business, and provides conservation opportunities for the firm’s real-estate portfolio and GE buildings.
* Sentient Energy, Burlingame, California, USA (intelligent sensor technologies) - Sentient develops grid monitoring systems and technology that consist of modular intelligent devices and software applications, enabling cost-effective distribution automation. It improves fault location, cause analysis and remediation, grid capacity management, and utility workforce usage, presenting integration and partnership opportunities for GE Energy’s Digital Energy product range.
* SynapSense Corp, Folsom, California, USA (data centre services) - Using a robust, wireless sensor network, SynapSense’s systems measure and manage the environmental conditions and power usage throughout data centres, resulting in a 10% reduction in overall energy consumption for typical, enterprise-class data centres. The technology offers commercial relationship opportunities with GE’s Digital Energy business and its Intelligent Platforms business with its visualisation and energy management systems.
“The Ecomagination Challenge has delivered on our commitment with partners to drive innovation and investment through collaborative action,” said Jeff Immelt, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, GE.
“We are working with these new partners to accelerate the development and deployment of these concepts on a scale that will help drive a cleaner, more efficient and economically viable grid. The partnerships formed through this challenge represent a new way of doing business at GE as we continue to expand our broad digital energy offering in the growing power-grid market.”
For further information, contact:
General Electric Co, 3135 Easton Turnpike, Fairfield, CT 06828-0001, USA. Tel +1-203-373-2211, Fax: 203-373-3131, Web: www.ge.com, Web: http://ge.ecomagination.com
