GE (NYSE: GE) announced plans to open a new smart grid technology center in Atlanta, Georgia that is expected to create 400 cleantech jobs over the next three years.
The center will combine the world headquarters for GE’s Digital Energy business,
a smart grid engineering laboratory and a
smart grid customer solutions showcase.
GE said funding from the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 will be used to help train the center’s workforce.
The smart grid lab features collaboration between GE and the Georgia Institute of Technology. The partnership will work to develop and test new smart grid technologies that can help improve the efficiency, reliability and environmental impact of energy transmission, distribution and consumption–from integrating more renewable energy sources, like wind and solar, to lowering the peak power demand that lowers the need for new power plants, to improving the ways consumers manage their power usage.
The smart grid customer solutions showcase will feature hands-on interactive displays that can help visitors from throughout the world understand the challenges and opportunities inherent in delivering electricity over the power grid. Visitors will see how changes in the ways power is generated, delivered and consumed can improve the ways they live–from plug-in car charging and home energy management to renewable generation and automated grid communications networks. The showcase also will feature in-depth demonstrations to help educate grid engineers about the proven energy-saving solutions available.
GE will move into the new headquarters in July, and the customer showcase is scheduled to open in September.
Utility Solar Study
In a separate announcement, GE said its solar researchers are working with Arizona Public Service, the state’s largest electric utility, to understand how large amounts of solar power can best be integrated into today’s grid. APS, along with four partners, including GE, recently was awarded a $3.3 million High Penetration Solar Deployment grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.
The first-of-its-kind study, which was approved earlier this month by the Arizona Corporation Commission, will take place in Flagstaff, Arizona. The team will help identify methods and technologies to optimize grid reliability and efficiency with the high concentration of distributed solar generation.
Kathleen O’Brien, Project Leader for GE, said to date most solar researh has focued on new cell developments and cost improvements, but learning how to reliably integrate higher penetrations of solar power is equally important.
The utility plans to integrate 1.5 MW of solar power on a single “feeder”, or energy distribution area. Approximately 600 kilowatts will come from residential photovoltaic rooftop installations; 400 kilowatts will be generated from installations on commercial business properties; and 500 kilowatts will be incorporated from a utility-scale solar park installation.
GE’s solar inverter will be used by the utility to handle power conversion from the utility-scale solar installation. This inverter was built from the same platform of power electronics, monitoring and controls that GE uses to enhance wind energy grid integration. GE said the inverter was developed to make solar plants “smarter,” coordinating the components of a large-scale installation to behave similar to a conventional power plant.
In addition to providing the solar inverter, GE researchers will be collecting data and doing power systems analysis on how the large influx of solar into this distribution network impacts the grid.
GE researchers will be collecting and analyzing data over the next couple of years, with a full report to be completed by 2013.
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