General Electric on Tuesday said that it has reached an agreement to deploy its coal gasification technology in China, a move the company says will advance underground storage of carbon dioxide.
The energy giant announced a set of agreements in a ceremony in Beijing, including deals for GE's high-speed rail and hybrid locomotive engines. The activity comes the same day that China and the U.S. announced a number of energy-related research initiatives in coal, electric vehicles, and smart-grid technologies.
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General Electric)
GE and coal power plant operator Shenhua Group signed a memorandum of understanding to create a joint venture to build plants that use GE's coal gasification products. They projected that a definitive agreement would be done by the first half of next year.
Coal gasification, already used in dozens of facilities, is cleaner than the traditional coal-fired process used in power plants because pollutants can be removed during power generation, according to the Department of Energy. Gasification is a thermo-chemical process where coal or other carbon-based feedstocks are treated under high heat and pressure with steam so that they break down into what's called syngas, which contains hydrogen and carbon monoxide. That syngas is then burned to run an electricity turbine.
In the planned projects in China, GE and Shenhua expect to build integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) facilities in China, including a commercial-scale plant that separates out carbon dioxide for underground storage.
Because the U.S. and China rely heavily on coal for power generation, policy makers say that carbon capture and storage at coal plants is an important technology for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants.
The U.S. Trade Development Agency will said it will fund the "initial steps" toward a plant in China based on GE technology.
The president of GE's Power and Water business, Steve Bolze, said in a statement that additional plants with coal gasification and carbon storage are needed to scale up the industry and lower costs.
Appliance manufacturer Whirlpool has received $19.3 million in U.S. Department of Energy funding as part of its Smart Grid Investment Grant program, the company announced Thursday.
Whirlpool, which markets appliances under the brand names Whirlpool, Maytag, KitchenAid, Jenn-Air, Amana, Brastemp, Consul, and Bauknecht, joins General Electric in what seems to be a quest for designing the most well-behaved appliances.
The Whirlpool Duet washer and dryer is part of the company's 2009 line of eco-efficient laundry appliances. With Department of Energy funds, it plans to have a million smart-grid-compliant dryers ready for sale by 2011.
(Credit: Whirlpool)Similar to GE's smart-appliance ambitions, Whirlpool plans to develop home appliances that can connect and communicate with municipal smart grids. The machines will be able to receive signals from a smart grid, letting it know of off-peak hours, a good time to turn on and run.
Whirlpool, which will get its funding over a two-year period, plans to match the funds in order to have a million smart-grid-compatible dryers available for public purchase by 2011. The smart dryers will be manufactured in the United States, and the company estimates that the dryers could save consumers $20 to $40 per year in energy savings.
In addition to the smart dryers, Whirlpool has pledged that by 2015, it will discontinue making appliances sans the ability to communicate with smart grids. It will no longer make "dumb" appliances at all.
That promise, however, is dependent on a few things happening.
"This commitment is dependent on two important public-private partnerships: the development by the end of 2010 of an open, global standard for transmitting signals to, and receiving signals from, a home appliance; and appropriate policies that reward consumers, manufacturers, and utilities for using and adding these new peak-demand reduction capabilities," Whirlpool said in a statement.
Whirlpool's announcement follows President Obama's release this week of plans to overhaul the country's electrical grid to turn it into a smart-grid system. An estimated $8.1 billion is planned to be spent on 100 smart-grid projects in 49 states. Utilities themselves will kick in $4.7 billion, while the remaining $3.4 billion will come from the U.S. government as stimulus money.
Israeli start-up Solar Edge has secured $23 million in funding to further develop its technology for increasing the efficiency of photovoltaic panels.
GE Energy Financial Services was a principle contributor to this latest round of funding and made the announcement Wednesday.
In May, SolarEdge unveiled a boosting technology for photovoltaic panels that it said could increase a solar power system's output by as much as 25 percent.
The SolarEdge system is a junction box with an integrated circuit that is embedded into existing solar photovoltaic panels to minimize the amount of electricity loss, thereby maximizing the amount of power the total system can generate. The box is designed to be used on either large-scale or residential solar panel systems.
Alex Urquhart, president and CEO of GE Energy Financial Services, said in a statement that he viewed the venture as opening the door to a more involved collaboration with joint product development and distribution between GE and SolarEdge.
Other investors that joined in the latest round of funding include Opus Capital, Walden International, Genesis Partners, Vertex Venture Capital, and JP Capital Asia.
It's the first time that GE Energy Financial Services has made an investment in an Israel-based company, GE said in a statement.
Abu Dhabi's planned green community, Masdar City, will be testing General Electric's smart appliances in a handful of residences and coordinating them with its power grid, GE said Monday.
GE's Consumer & Industrial division announced in October 2008 that it was developing home appliances that could ease the strain on electrical grids by coordinating with a grid's off-peak hours to perform flexible functions.
A refrigerator equipped with a "smart" meter, for example, communicates with the local power utility. That refrigerator then waits to run its automatic defrost cycle until it has received a signal from the electrical grid that it's an off-peak period.
A smart meter on a refrigerator at GE's labs.
(Credit: Martin LaMonica/CNET)Masdar City is under construction in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. It aims to be the first carbon-neutral and zero-waste city. It's also home to the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology. The post-graduate research center, a collaborator with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, began offering courses and research facilities in alternative energy and sustainable technology for graduate students in September.
The two-year pilot project with GE appliances will include refrigerators, stoves, and European-style washer/dryer machines that run on 220volt/50HZ platforms and will be installed in 10 residences.
The installation, to be completed in early 2010, will include a communication system between the appliances and Masdar City's utility grid that will allow the appliances to transmit real-time data and run nonessential functions during off-peak usage hours. Since Masdar City is not scheduled to be fully inhabited until 2013, the city's grid will simulate peak usage strains in order to test the system.
Previously, GE began testing its smart appliances in select homes in Louisville, Ky., in conjunction with the Louisville Gas and Electric Company.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--General Electric plans to give its solar business a charge within two years by introducing panels with the same solar cell material used by industry cost leader First Solar.
In 2011, the energy giant expects to produce solar panels made with cadmium telluride, a thin-film solar cell material, Michael Idelchik, vice president of advanced technologies at GE Global Research, said here Wednesday at the EmTech conference. The company now sells solar panels that use silicon solar cells, but its long-term bet is on thin-film--and specifically cadmium telluride--because it offers the cheapest cost per watt, he said.
Cadmium telluride solar panels from First Solar installed in Berkeley, Calif.
(Credit: SolarCity)Last year, GE's energy division took a majority stake in Golden, Colo.-based PrimeStar Solar, for its cadmium telluride cell technology. GE is now developing a product around that aimed at utility and commercial customers.
Solar at GE is a relatively small part of its sprawling energy portfolio, which covers everything from nuclear power plants to natural gas turbines. But GE expects that solar has the potential to grow rapidly, as its multibillion-dollar wind business has done over the past five years.
"Solar is definitely the next wind for us. It's not there yet, but it's moving very rapidly," Idelchik said. Solar is more expensive than wind right now, but he said that GE expects renewable energy mandates to help drive growth and bring costs down.
Thin-film solar cells offer lower production costs than the incumbent silicon because thin-film cells use far less material. Over the past five years, several solar companies have formed to make thin-film cells from a combination copper, indium, gallium, and selenide (CIGS), which are still not in the market in high volumes. GE's cells will be made from a compound of cadmium and tellurium.
Silicon cells are durable and more efficient at converting sunlight to electricity than thin-film solar cells. The most efficient commercial silicon cells can convert over 20 percent of sunlight to electricity. But GE Research projects that it can boost the efficiency of cadmium telluride to 12 percent efficiency and potentially higher, Idelchik said.
"We are excited about it because it can produce in diffuse light," he said. "The module (panel) life is 20 years--that's what the customer wants. It has the right production costs and right efficiency target."
Asked how its cadmium telluride products will differ from First Solar's, Idelchik answered only briefly that GE's device would be more "flexible for customers" in terms of installation and operation.
During his presentation, Idelchik said that GE is looking at ways of managing an entire solar array in a large installation built by a utility or commercial customer.
After his talk, he said that GE is developing technology to recycle solar cell material, as cadmium is a very toxic if it enters the environment.
General Electric filled out its offshore wind turbine portfolio by buying ScanWind, which makes direct-drive turbine components.
GE on Monday said that it has completed the acquisition, which was valued at a about $18.5 million. ScanWind, which is headquartered in Trondheim, Norway and has a design center in Karlstad, Sweden, is now testing 11 turbines off the Norwegian coast.
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General Electric)
ScanWind makes a drive train that eliminates the need for a gear box in a wind turbine. Direct drive turbines typically add cost to turbines but they are gaining use in small turbines and other places where low maintenance is required.
GE invested in the technology specifically for use in offshore wind turbines. "(Reliability) is particularly important for the growth of the offshore wind industry, where project economics are strongly affected by turbine design and reliability," Vic Abate, vice president of renewable energy at GE Energy, said in a statement.
With many of the best locations for land wind farms spoken for, offshore wind farms offer some of the best wind power potential. There are a handful of offshore wind farm proposals in the U.S. including the Cape Wind project in Massachusetts and a project off the coast of Delaware.
Citing industry estimates, GE said that offshore wind is projected to balloon from an installed base of 1.5 gigawatts in 2008 to 30 gigawatts by 2020, driven by European renewable energy mandates and falling wind power prices. A typical nuclear or coal power plant has a generating capacity of about one gigawatt, or 1,000 megawatts.
NISKAYUNA, N.Y.--Modernizing the electricity grid to be a more efficient and reliable smart grid will bring a number of societal benefits. That is, if consumers are up for it.
General Electric on Tuesday hosted a symposium of utility industry executives at its research lab here, where the company showed off appliances due next year that communicate with smart meters to take advantage of cheaper electricity rates.
GE also showed off the Home Energy Manager, a device that gives consumers more details on energy consumption and a way to program their appliance preferences. For example, a person can allow the clothes dryer to go into "conservation" mode when the utility signals through the smart meter that peak prices are in effect.
These sorts of goods promise to help consumers cut their utility bills without much added expense--GE forecasts its "demand response" appliances will cost about $10 more.
But industry executives still wonder whether consumers will be drawn to products like energy displays and networked appliances. And tepid acceptance of smart-grid technologies could cut short the benefits of higher grid efficiency, they said.
"There's a lot of good technology that fits into the smart-grid concept, but the challenge frankly moving forward is getting consumer acceptance, not just today but in the future," said Bryan Olnick, senior director of the Meter Service department at Florida Power & Light. The city of Miami is hoping to land government stimulus money to install smart meters through its entire city.
Olnick said giving consumers more detailed information on their usage, such as which appliances consume the most energy, is useful for consumers because it helps them find ways to conserve. But more smart-grid applications are needed to keep consumers interested and engaged over time, he said.
Peak shaving
In addition to saving an individual home's energy consumption, smart-grid technologies are supposed to deliver benefits to the grid at large. For example, better controls over the flow of energy means that more wind and solar power can be used.
Utilities and regulators are particularly keen on shaving their "peak load," which typically corresponds to the morning hours and the late afternoon to early evening. To supply electricity during high-demand periods, utilities turn to "peaker plants," which are expensive and polluting.
In New York, for example, thousands of megawatts of power generation are used only 10 percent of the time to deliver sufficient electricity during times of very high demand, such as the middle of a hot summer day when the air conditioning load shoots up.
Kevin Nolan, vice president of technology for GE's Consumer & Industrial unit, shows off GE's demand response appliances and Home Energy Manager at GE's smart grid symposium at its Global Research Center in upstate New York.
(Credit: GE)For that reason, many smart-grid technologies, including GE's home appliances, are aimed at ratcheting down the load during peak times. A drier could get a "price signal" about peak rates via the smart meter and shift to conservation mode. The clothes will take longer to dry, but the consumer would get a discounted rate for easing the load on that grid.
But in practice, most utilities only offer a flat rate, not time-of-use pricing. And consumers will need to learn to navigate a variable pricing schedule to get any savings.
In its smart meter program announced Tuesday, Baltimore Gas & Electric, proposes giving consumers a rebate when they dial down energy use during peak times, rather than time-of-use rates.
Also, feedback systems and in-home energy displays can be daunting to many consumers. Baltimore plans on equipping homes with a small orb that turns from green to red to signal peak times.
At smart-grid conferences, there are often representatives from the AARP who voice concern over whether the elderly will be comfortable with the new technology, noted Juan de Bedout, technology leader for power conversion systems at GE research center.
"There's a big challenge in the human factors, making sure that interfacing with people works," he said. "It has to be simple."
Consumer control
Some people have also voiced concerns over privacy with smart meters and control in demand-response programs.
GE said its smart appliances can automatically shift to low-consumption mode based on a price signal from a utility. In other cases, the utility could dial down a thermostat or pool pump directly, something that some people view as intrusive.
The way to address those concerns is to ensure that data sharing and demand-response programs are voluntary, said Bob Gilligan, vice president of transmission and distribution at GE. Even though GM appliances will have a module built in to communicate with a smarter meter, consumers don't need to establish that connection, according to GE.
Most people will want to take a "set it and forget it" approach to home energy management, where they set up appliances according to few parameters, Gilligan said. For example, a homeowner can allow a utility to adjust the temperature on the hot water heater when nobody is home and allow the thermostat to go up 4 degrees during peak times when people are home.
In terms of data privacy, Gilligan said at this point consumers elect to send detailed usage data to the utility, but the rules on data collection aren't fully fleshed out. "There are concerns that still need to be addressed in terms of the regulatory structure," he said.
On Tuesday, GE released results of a survey done by Ipsos that found three out of five consumers in the U.K. and U.S. are interested in the pricing structure behind electricity bills. Half of the respondents in the U.S. and over one-third in the U.K. said they would be willing to pay a higher monthly rate if they were able to cut overall energy costs by 15 percent.
During a panel on Tuesday, Stan Blazewicz, the vice president of technology at utility National Grid, joked that he was surprised three out of five survey respondents claimed to know what the smart grid was. That said, it is clear that a significant number of consumers are concerned over the environment, primarily climate change.
"Consumers want to do something about the environment. They want to do the right thing, but they say they just don't know what that is," he said. "And they are looking for ways to save money."
NISKAYUNA, N.Y.--General Electric unveiled a project at its research labs that will let homeowners cut annual energy consumption to zero by 2015.
These "net-zero energy homes" will combine on-site power generation through solar panels or wind turbines with energy-efficient appliances and on-site storage. Consumers will get detailed energy data and potentially control appliances with Home Energy Manager, a device that is expected to cost between $200 and $250, according to GE executives at a smart grid media day.
GE is piloting the in-home products this year and expects to have the appliances and energy display available next year. The premium for the more efficient, networked appliances will be about $10 more, GE executives said. A net-zero energy home would cost about 10 percent more by 2015, executives said.
Kevin Nolan, vice president of technology at GE's Consumer & Industrial unit, shows off GE's demand response appliances and Home Energy Manager at GE's smart grid symposium at its Global Research Center in upstate New York.
(Credit: General Electric)Studies show that when consumers have more detailed information on their energy use, they can find ways to reduce consumption by 5 to 10 percent. When utilities have variable, or time-of-use, pricing, consumers could cut electricity use by 15 percent at on-peak times, typically in the morning and early evening.
GE appliances have been converted to have electronic controls and will have a small module in the back that will allow it to communicate with a home's smart meter. With that communication link in place, consumers can find out how much electricity individual appliances use and program them to take advantage of off-peak rates.
"I don't think any of us look forward to the day when we are monitoring hour to hour the cost of electricity. But I think all of us look forward to the day when we can set it and forget it," said Bob Gilligan, GE's vice president of transmission and distribution. "That's the future we look forward to."
For example, a consumer can set up the system so that the temperature in a water heater or thermostat can drop down to a certain level when nobody is at home.
Consumers can turn off features that will enable appliances to communicate with utilities to participate in utility-run demand-response programs, where a utility can adjust thermostats or appliances to shave peak-time consumption, according to Michael Beyerle, a marketing manager at GE's Consumer & Industrial appliance division.
Consumer incentive strong?
The idea behind the smart grid, which encompasses a range of technologies, is to make the electricity grid more efficient and reliable by applying information technologies and controls to the existing grid.
In addition to networked appliances, GE's Net Zero Home Project calls for on-site power generation through solar panels or wind turbines. GE produces solar panels and has invested in residential wind turbine maker Southwest Windpower. A 3,000-watt solar panel array, which costs roughly $30,000 to install, would be enough to supply all of a home's consumption, according to GE executives.
The major components of a net-zero energy home as part of its Net Zero Energy Home project.
(Credit: General Electric)Plug-in electric vehicles and home batteries could be used to store electricity for peak-time power or back-up. Plug-in vehicles could also be charged during the middle of the night to take advantage of off-peak rates.
GE's Home Energy Manager control unit, which consumers access through a dedicated display, provides information to consumers but also is designed to optimize one-site energy generation and consumption.
For example, the control unit could evaluate electricity rates and see that running a dishwasher when the solar panels are producing is cheaper than running the load at off-peak times, explained Beyerle. Or a clothes drier can go into "conservation" mode during peak times where it will operate at a lower temperature and take longer to run.
During the media day, GE hosted a panel on challenges to the smart grid with Mark Brian, a consumer (and GE employee) using a suite of GE appliances at his home in Louisville, Ky.
He found that his monthly electricity consumption and his energy bills have gone down by 20 percent compared to last year. Because his home now has time-of-use pricing, his bills would have gone up if he hadn't been using the networked appliances. He added the system has given him ideas on how to take advantage of cheaper rates. "We still do the same stuff. We just do it at different times," Brian said.
GE executives said that the information-management tools need to be very easy to use. Also, policies need to be in place to address data privacy and to create financial incentives, namely variable pricing.
"There's a lot consumers are willing to do if they are properly informed and properly incented," said Gilligan.
Updated at 12:55 p.m. PT to clarify the changes in Mark Brian's utility bills.
Imagine a refrigerator smart enough to cut your electricity bills.
Smart-grid start-up Tendril and General Electric later this year will test a smart-grid system that will allow GE's networked home appliances to take advantage of cheaper electricity rates, the companies announced Wednesday.
The joint development deal calls for GE to speak to Tendril's smart-grid software in a range of GE appliances--dishwashers, washing machines, refrigerators, and water heaters--over Zigbee wireless networks.
From GE's labs: a fridge that talks to smart meters to save energy.
(Credit: Martin LaMonica/CNET)The integration will allow consumers to control their appliances from different points, such a Web browser, iPhone, or in-home display.
GE's support for Tendril's software for utilities will also allow consumers to take advantage of efficiency incentives offered by utilities, explained Adrian Tuck, the CEO of Tendril. The companies plan to test the system in the fourth quarter this year to measure the amount of energy savings possible, he said.
Tuck projected that reductions on the order of 30 percent for an individual appliance are possible if a utility offers demand-response programs to cut energy use during peak times. For a consumer, that would mean that a clothes drier will turn off the gas heat for a few minutes. In exchange, a consumer can get some sort of discount.
"People ask me all the time whether this is disruptive technology and I say that for most people it shouldn't be," Tuck said. "The vast majority of people just want to consume less electricity and they don't want to do it in ways that disrupt their lives."
To make this type of demand-response application possible, Tendril's software needs to communicate information on changing electricity prices from the utilities to GE's appliances through a smart meter or broadband connection. Based on that information, a refrigerator, for example, can decide to make ice at off-peak times.
Beyond the technical barriers, there need to be regulations that give incentives for utilities to promote efficiency and offer variable time-of-day pricing, Tuck added. "A lot of utilities don't like the idea of having customers consume less of what they sell," he said.
Also, how much consumers are willing to pay for in-home energy displays and grid-connected appliances in exchange for energy savings is still unclear. Tuck thinks consumers should not have to pay more than $100 to start out and not have ongoing fees.
Competition to supply gear to modernize the power grid is heating up as utilities Duke Energy and ComEd named their expected smart grid suppliers on Tuesday.
Duke said that it has chosen Cisco to supply an array of equipment for a planned smart grid program estimated at $1 billion over the next few years. Cisco, which unveiled its smart-grid initiative last month, is expected to supply in-home energy monitors as well as networking hardware for Duke's substations, the utility said.
North Carolina-based Duke aims to provide a digital upgrade to its 11 million customers in the five states it operates.
"Replacing our analog electric grid with advanced digital technology to create a 21st century electricity delivery system largely involves data, networks, and communications--all of it Cisco's expertise," Todd Arnold, senior vice president for smart grid and customer systems at Duke Energy, said in a statement.
Chicago-based ComEd on Tuesday announced its recommended providers, including General Electric for smart meters and Silver Spring Networks, which provides wireless communications and software.
If approved, the smart grid program would bring real-time information on electricity usage and rates to consumers by installing 141,000 two-way meters in 11 Chicago suburbs.
Several utilities are investing in smart-grid technology, such as in-home energy monitors and smart meters. By presenting consumers with up-to-the-minute information on usage and changing rates, utilities hope to cut their peak-time electricity usage and avoid outages.
There are dozens of providers angling for business from utilities in these smart-grid programs.
Seven-year-old Silver Spring Networks has emerged as one of the most successful providers, having secured deals with a handful of utilities, including Florida Power & Light.
Cisco, meanwhile, is making a concerted push around energy efficiency and grid modernization, developing a full line of communications products for utilities, consumers, and building managers.
