This week, General Electric made two big announcements regarding renewable energy. On Monday, the conglomerate released information about its completed acquisition of Norwegian turbine maker ScanWind. This is GE’s first major move into offshore wind power and is another step in its drive to turn its “Ecomagination” push and initial investments into multi-billion dollar industries. In onshore wind power, GE already has a strong position, selling “about half the new turbines being installed in the US, and has a global market share of about 20 per cent” according to the Financial Times. On shore wind power is still much cheaper and more reliable than offshore wind power but GE hopes to close that gap. As seen in this great NREL map of the wind resources in the United States (PDF) , the most outstanding sources of wind power lie right of the coasts.
The other big announcement by GE, made yesterday, was that it intends to increase production of solar panels by early next year. At a facility in Colorado, it has begun building pilot production lines that will eventually crank out the panels. While wind power related sales have been strong for GE, the Financial Times reports that “the development of GE’s solar business has been muted, with annual sales at less than $200m. In spite of the slow start, [GE] maintains that the division will eventually become a meaningful part of what has become the conglomerate’s fastest-growing operating unit.” One of the only segments of the company growing briskly even given the economic environment, “in the first six months of 2009, GE’s energy-infrastructure unit reported an operating profit of $3.1bn, up 16 per cent from a year ago, on sales of $17.8bn” said the Financial Times.
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