Clean technologies earned GE $18 billion in 2010

GE rolled out 22 new clean-technology products in 2010, including its WattStation charging station for electric cars and its Nucleus smart meter to help homeowners monitor and manage their energy use.

The new products were highlighted in GE’s latest annual report for its ecomagination initiative. The report shows GE invested about $1.8 billion in 2010 on research and development of clean technologies, which puts the company on course to meet its goal of $10 billion cumulative investment between 2010 and 2015.

The clean technology venture has been a successful one for GE, which took in $18 billion in revenues from ecomagination products last year. Since ecomagination was launched in 2005, the program has earned GE more than $85 billion in sales … making the initiative one of the company’s most successful ever.

The latest ecomagination report also shows GE reduced its energy intensity by nearly 33 percent last year, and cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 24 percent, compared to a 2004 baseline.

“While eco revenues were affected by the global economic slowdown, we continued to make significant investments even during challenging times in solutions that will help increase long-term profitability, create new markets, and deliver greater competitiveness to GE, customers, investors and consumers,” said Mark Vachon, vice president of ecomagination. The ecomagination program, he added, has succeeded in “turning global challenges into business opportunities.”