
GE Renewable Energy, a division of General Electric, is a $15.7 billion business with one of the broadest portfolios in the renewable energy industry to deliver end-to-end solutions for customers demanding reliable and affordable green power. The company harnesses the strength of the wind, the heat of the sun, and the force of water to power the world’s biggest economies and most remote communities with green electrons. With an entrepreneurial mindset and an innovative spirit, GE Renewable Energy engineers energy products, grid solutions, and digital services, creating industry-leading value for customers across the world. Backed by a competent team that has the courage, scale, passion, diversity, and resourcefulness, the company offers affordable, reliable, and sustainable energy. With an impressive track record of installing 49,000 wind turbines globally, GE Renewable Energy is unleashing limitless energy. Jérôme Pécresse, Senior Vice President, GE & CEO, GE Renewable Energy, says the company could “get many positives out of the energy transition.”
One of the leading wind turbine suppliers in the world, GE Renewable Energy’s wind energy solutions portfolio comprises a suite of onshore and offshore turbines, as well as operations and maintenance. Flexible support services ranging from development assistance to digital optimization and the latest in wind power technology to upgrade the fleet also add to the list of solutions. The company is rightly positioned to help customers either begin their wind power journey or scale with its solutions that best address their challenges and priorities. “The conventional wisdom, three, four years ago at GE was thermal power [will] keep growing and offshore wind is a fantasy,” notes Pécresse. “Now offshore wind is not a fantasy, it’s a market. And GE can positively adapt and invest into it.”
Making Strides in Wind Energy Landscape
GE’s Haliade-X is the most powerful offshore wind turbine in the world and the most efficient ocean-based wind platform with a leading capacity factor of 60-64 percent. The company’s investment in the Haliade-X will make offshore wind a more cost-effective and competitive source of clean energy. This innovative wind turbine is less sensitive to wind speed variations and generates more power at low wind speeds. It can also capture more Annual Energy Production (AEP) than any other offshore wind turbine, even at low wind conditions. With a 14 MW, 13 MW, or 12 MW capacity, a 220-meter rotor, a 107-meter blade, and digital capabilities, the Haliade-X offshore turbine proves to be engineered for performance. “The Haliade-X shows GE’s commitment to the offshore wind segment and will set a new benchmark for cost of electricity, thus driving more offshore growth,” mentions Pécresse.
The Haliade-X shows GE’s commitment to the offshore wind segment and will set a new benchmark for cost of electricity, thus driving more offshore growth
What’s more? GE Renewable Energy has agreed to provide onshore wind turbines for the 1485MW North Central Wind Energy Facilities, developed by Invenergy, in Oklahoma. With a keen focus on delivering a significant amount of affordable, sustainable energy to the region, GE Renewable Energy is excited to be a part of this endeavor, the largest combined onshore wind project in GE’s history. Invenergy and GE are accelerating the move toward clean energy by being the partners of choice for utilities and other leading companies that want to be part of the ongoing and critical transition to affordable, sustainable renewable energy.
The Future is Digital
Transforming operational data into value is the key to understand the future of wind power. GE Renewable Energy integrates data-driven insights, expert recommendations, and advanced field services into a single software platform to increase revenue, reduce costs, and lower risk in wind energy systems. Wind farms generate massive quantities of operational data & analytics; through the digital monitoring of customers’ wind asset systems, the company offers detailed and actionable information. That’s not all! GE’s OEM-agnostic applications analyze, operationalize, and monetize assets, making way for outcomes that significantly impact the bottom line in digital wind farm management as well as performance.
GE offers digital wind energy technology—built on the Predix platform—as a part of its expanded services agreement. This technology provides customers with a digital infrastructure for their wind farm and enables them to seamlessly collect, visualize, and analyze asset-, farm-, and fleet-level wind power analytics. As a result, the company allows for advanced wind performance and predictive maintenance capabilities—a digital wind predictive model is built, and data collected throughout the GE fleet is turned into actionable insights. As such, through its new suite of digital wind energy software applications, GE enables wind farm operators to enhance predictive wind maintenance strategies, increase annual energy production, and improve reliability and availability. In a nutshell, the company empowers customers, from field service teams and site managers to diagnostic engineers to CIOs, with an end-to-end business-focused solution.