GE's bet on smart energy keeps growing
Continuing on its quest to grab a share of the future “smart energy” market, GE has decided to buy one of the technology companies it singled out last year as an ecomagination Challenge winner.
The $200 million challenge was aimed at identifying and funding innovative firms with “the best ideas for bringing the power grid into the 21st century.”
One of those firms, FMC-Tech, is now being officially “adopted” into the GE family. GE has announced plans to acquire the company and make it part of its Energy Services’ Digital Energy Smart Substation business. Financial terms of the acquisition, expected to be completed in July, were not disclosed.
Based in Shannon, Ireland, FMC-Tech provides technology for monitoring the performance of powerlines with sensors that measure current and conductor temperature. The company’s solutions make it easier for utilities to identify faults and manage electricity, and is designed to work with existing utility systems for demand management, energy management and SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition).
“Utility operators can better balance the load by managing capacity and optimizing the amount of power sent through a line,” said Bob Gilligan, CEO of digital energy for GE Energy Services. “Maintenance and repair crews can be more effectively dispatched for increased productivity, improved reliability and greater customer satisfaction.”
Gilligan added that the addition of FMC-Tech will enable GE to offer more technology products and services to its utility customers. With intelligent metering and energy infrastructure improvements rolling out in greater numbers across the UK, UK, Europe and elsewhere, the acquisition gives GE yet more muscle in the growing smart-grid market.
It also underscores GE’s foresight in establishing its ecomagination initiative way back in 2005 as a way to promote environmentally smart business strategies that pay off financially. Between now and 2015, the company says it plans to increase its ecomagination revenues twice as quickly as overall earnings while doubling its research-and-development spending to $10 billion.
With the smart grid since landing front and center on the sustainability investment map, GE has so far demonstrated that its own focus on energy has certainly paid off for itself.
