Sitting in on the event, the most intriguing thing I heard was that GE is going to spend $200 million to partner with smaller companies, start-ups, inventors etc. to bring their ideas or technologies to life. I look forward to seeing great and innovative challenge submissions.  Check out this video summary of the event posted to YouTube by EUX.TV — very exciting!

How to efficiently and robustly connect vehicles to the electrical grid has many challenges. Initially the small numbers of electric vehicles will not strain the grid. However, I would argue that providing a good customer experience will be critical for these early adopters. In today’s social-media connected environment, the communication of their perception may impact the overall adoption curve. Here are some of the challenges that I see:

- Home wiring. Will the vehicle owner’s house have the proper wiring already installed to support vehicle charging? Will it only be adequate for slower Level 1 (120V) charging? Will they need to upgrade? If an electrical upgrade is required, how long will it take to get a permit? How much will it cost? What about people that don’t have a garage? Where will they locate the charger and the wiring?
- Charging programs available. There is discussion about the possibility of offering discounted electrical charging rates for vehicle owners. How do they find out about these rates? How do they sign up for the programs? Do they have the right metering infrastructure in their house to permit the separate measurement of electrical energy delivered to the vehicle?
- Vehicle cost. The vehicle OEMs are working hard to offer an attractive product and an affordable cost. The battery systems for these vehicles are still expensive. How will this impact the overall vehicle cost? What is the true pathway to lower cost battery systems and at what rate will this happen?
- Cable management. The cord that connects the vehicle to the charging station could pose tripping hazards. I know that my own garage is not always clean and tidy (the case most of the time). I could easily see a cord left on the floor.

On a broader level, there are a couple of issues or challenges that we need to face.

- Lack of charging stations outside the home. Initially, there will be few charging stations outside the home. Will this cause range anxiety?
- Clustering of electric vehicles. Even with the relatively small numbers initially for electric vehicles, if they are “clustered” in certain neighborhoods, will this tax the local electrical distribution system, including transformers?

Some of these challenges are quite real, and a few may only be perceptions. However, the good news is that the electrified transportation community has recognized these issues and is proactively developing solutions. Many of the utilities that I have spoken with have active programs to make sure their networks and systems are ready for electric vehicles and that they can provide a great experience for the customer.

The MOU announced today by GE and Nissan will also look to help develop a more quantitative understanding for several of these potential issues. We will also look to investigate methods to connect vehicles to local buildings or homes in a manner that is synergistic with the existing loads, such as appliances and heating/cooling systems. The joint team will also look to understand the synergistic role that an aggregated number of vehicles can play with the electrical grid system.

While there are several challenges to overcome to make electrified transportation a reality, much progress is already being made. The entire community from vehicle OEMs, utilities, electrical equipment suppliers, and government/municipal agencies are working hard to make sure that this change is truly transformational and sustainable. Exciting times ahead!

You can read more about today’s announcement with Nissan at GE Reports.

Along with Arizona Public Service (APS), Arizona State University, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), a team from GE Global Research and GE Energy will take part in a 3.5 year, $3.3 million dollar program to study the impact of high solar energy penetration levels on the US power grid. This project is called “High Penetration of Photovoltaic Generation Study – Flagstaff Community Power” and is a part of the Department of Energy’s High Penetration Solar Deployment Program which was announced last year.

The project is built upon a larger pilot project launched by Arizona Public Service in Flagstaff called the APS Community Power Project. The Community Power Project will provide an opportunity for customers connecting to the utility through a designated feeder to experience the benefits of solar power without the upfront costs associated with the purchase of solar panels, equipment, and installation labor. The utility will provide rooftop solar electric systems at no cost to the community and will then charge customers for the power produced by these systems at a lower Community Power rate which is fixed for 20 years. Approximately 1.5MW of solar generation is expected to be installed along the Sandvig 4 feeder in Flagstaff. Participating customers will host a total of 1000kW of distributed PV: 600kW will be installed as residential rooftop systems sized 2-4kW, and 400kW as larger commercial/industrial systems sized 50-150kW. The remaining 500kW will be hosted by APS and installed as a small solar farm located on the feeder. This project is a step toward helping APS to achieve its Renewable Energy Standard of 15% of electricity generated by renewables by 2025, while also helping customers to gain control over energy costs. The pilot project will also be a part of APS’s smart grid initiatives for operation and data collection, and comprehensive monitoring and data collection will be installed throughout the feeder and on many of the distributed PV sources. The data collected on this project will enable APS to evaluate how distributed energy impacts its system, and to define guidelines for the design of similar systems in the future.

GE’s collaboration with APS on the High Penetration of Photovoltaic Generation Study will provide us with a unique opportunity to study the effects of increasing levels of PV penetration on a typical distribution feeder. Our partners at GE Energy EA&SE will provide system impact and performance evaluation studies leading to an evaluation of the impact of distributed PV generation on the feeder voltage. This evaluation is more complex than it sounds because both the load (the amount of power being drawn from the feeder) and the source (the amount of power being created by the sunlight) are constantly changing. We will also have the opportunity to study the effect of several of the advanced features of the recently introduced GE utility-scale solar inverter. We will deploy the GE inverter in the 500kW solar farm. Data collection and analysis coupled with modeling and simulation will allow us to better understand the behavior of the inverter under real-world conditions. These results can then be extrapolated to help us to understand other systems, even those that may be significantly larger in scale.

We are very excited to start this project and to further our understanding of how GE can best contribute to technology development in grid-integration of photovoltaics.

It was especially rewarding to the technology teams throughout the different GE businesses that are collaborating to build GE’s Smart Grid solutions to see our Smart Grid labs recognized. Our two labs, one based at GE’s R&D headquarters in Upstate NY, and the other at our Energy facility in Melbourne, FL, are working to integrate technologies that truly span the energy infrastructure in a complete way, from conventional and renewable generation sources, through the transmission and distribution infrastructure, and all the way into the home. Imagine this – in a single room, each of these labs is simulating the entire grid network, from power plants all the way into the home. You won’t find any other industrial labs in the world with such a broad perspective.

GE is positioned to be a technical and commercial leader in the transformation of the electricity delivery infrastructure. In the same way that we helped to build the modern electric grid city by city, we are now leading the way to re-invent the grid all over again to enhance reliability, productivity, environmental footprint, and consumer choices.

It’s an exciting time to be a technologist in this space. We are where we most like to be … at the center of it all.

Tomorrow is Thomas Edison’s birthday, and I can’t think of a better way to pay tribute then to celebrate the new Center of Excellence (CoE) in Power Conversion technologies GE just opened at our research facility in Germany. A tribute because Edison was a big believer in the future of renewable power, and this new CoE will create the next generation of technologies needed to help realize their full potential.

It’s no secret that renewable power sources like wind and solar are becoming more prevalent on the grid today. In fact, it’s no longer a question of if, but how much we can take on. I’ll save that question for another day, but what is clear is that the grid will have to improve as higher amounts of wind and solar are brought on line

That’s where our new Center of Excellence in Power Conversion comes into play. To take on more solar and wind, more power electronics and controls technologies will be needed to ensure that we can reliably integrate them into the grid. Because solar and wind generate power differently from conventional power generators like a gas turbine, you need a seamless conversion process to modify them into usable electricity for the grid. GE Energy is hiring 20 new design engineers as an extension to the Controls & power CoE in Salem, Virginia. This new team will work in conjunction with my team, the High Power Electronics Lab, which is part of GE Global Research Power Conversion Systems, to develop and bring needed power conversion technologies to market faster. We’re looking for highly qualified engineers. If interested, you can learn more by visiting GE’s careers site.

How right Edison was about the future of solar energy. My  job is to help make sure we have a grid that is capable enough to handle the higher levels forecast in the future.

After a bunch of thinking, I decided to “Explore Innovation” – specifically, I was curious to see how other organizations innovate – specially in industries different from GE. I managed to hook-up with Singularity University and the Barbarian Group, spending 1 week at each place. In this blog, I’ll talk a little bit about my experience at SU, and I’ll write a follow-on blog about the Barbarian Group.

Singularity University is a brand new university (just founded in 2009 and has some heritage with the International Space University that I attended a few years ago. Co-founded by Google and NASA Ames, SU is focused on innovation and entrepreneurship using Ray Kurzweil’s theories of accelerating technological change as a basis. Just like ISU, they offer a 9-week summer session, and I was lucky to be able to join them for 1 week. And wow… what a week! I had some pretty awesome lectures on topics ranging from nanotech, biotech to future studies and energy. To top it off, we even had a field trip to the IBM Almaden center where we used their STM to move around iron atoms (no joke!). Back in the early 90s IBM amazed the world by arranging some Xe atoms to spell IBM. I got to see the place where that happened – and on top of it, we did our own atom re-arrangement and spelled SU using Fe atoms!! They had it all setup using a computer with a mouse. Literally, click and drag, and voila… you just moved a single atom to your desired location!

So… what did I get out of this? Well, in particular, two lectures got my attention. One was by Bob Metcalfe, co-inventor of ethernet and founder of 3Com. He presented a fantastic lecture in which he compared the development of the Internet over the past 40 years with the present challenge of developing the “Enernet”, the energy network, over the next 40 years. The analogy was surprising to me, and the many lessons are very relevant. In particular, he was one of the few persons I’ve heard recognize that “solving energy” is going to take decades, just like the internet really took 40 years to develop.

The other lecture was by Paul Saffo in which he talked about how the basis of the economy is in the process of fundamentally changing – this really resonated with Jeff Immelt’s recent thoughts about “living in a reset world”. In particular, he described how from the 1800s to the 1950s, we lived in the Industrial Revolution where the primary actor was the worker and GDP was based on worker output (eg. goods). In the 1950s, the Consumer Economy began where the primary actor was the consumer and GDP became based on consumer purchases of goods and services. I had a fun conversation with Pankaj, one of the students I befriended, who made a really good point. He indicated that if he sold me a banana for a $1, and then I sold it back to him for $1 – we’ve increased GDP! But obviously, we haven’t done anything to increase value of anything. To simple-minded me, this very much sounds like a house-of-cards, and it’s no surprise it all came to a crashing halt in 2008. And now, we appear to be resetting. It’s not clear how things will shape out, but it will take several decades and the hypothesis is that the new economy will blur the lines between consumer and worker. For example, right now, when you click on a link on the web, you’re behaving as a consumer following a link to obtain some particular information, however, at the very same time, you just did some work for some search engine company who just learned something about your preference! At the same time, you were both a consumer and a worker – real value was exchanged via information – and yet no money ever changed hands! If this is the new economy, then a very real question is how does this apply to a company like GE which makes jet engines, advanced medical equipment and large-scale powerplants? Or, is this just another exchange of bananas?

Last but not least, the best part was meeting the other students – they’re really a very unique bunch. As you might imagine, competition to attend this first summer session was very intense with several thousand applicants for only 40 spots. Next year they plan on taking the full complement of about 120 students. Also, starting in the Fall, SU plans on offering 3-day and 10-day executive classes. Overall, it was a unique experience, and certainly worth considering. If you’re interested, please visit the SU website.

Hello everyone, I would like to give you a recap of theSmart Grid Summit we held last week, which hosted various utilities, national institutions, government agencies, and GE businesses. The Summit helped to furtherdevelop many conversations about what Smart Grid really is and how we can improve it.

We started with a media event that included over thirty representatives from different media outlets, ranging from print to television to the web. It was a great opportunity to explain and demonstrate what Smart Grid actually is and how it one day may be a part of our daily lives. We also hosted a number of tours for the symposium attendees, giving them a first hand look at our Smart Grid lab, complete with real time grid simulation capabilities to GE’s new demand responsive appliances, which are capable of reducing their energy consumption during periods of high price of electricity.

Following the media day, we kicked-off a day and half longtechnical symposiumthat evening. A featured keynote speaker at the Symposium was Patricia Hoffman, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary (PDAS) for the Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability at the United States Department of Energy. Pat delivered a great speech, virtually covering all aspects of the DOE’s Smart Grid vision and their expectation to see great results out of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act. Patricia challenged GE and all symposium participants to help solve tomorrow’s energy problems. Global Research and many of the GE businesses are working closely with electric utilities, universities and national institutions to jointlydevelop Smart Grid technologies.

During the symposiumon Wednesday, representatives from different public utilities such as Southern California Edison and American Electric Power GE presented on the ways in which they are implementing Smart Grid technology. We also had some folks from GE talking about what we aredoing to help make it a reality. Furthermore, speakers presented on the progress of renewable energy sources and how new Smart Grid technology will help to better manage an increasing base of clean yet intermittent generation. Additional presentation topics ranged from asset management and health monitoring to the best ways of delivering power to customers while minimizing losses during the transmission and distribution process.

The Summit wrapped up on Thursday with a GE-only Session T, a technology strategy session where business leaders and technology experts discussedplans to further develop new Smart Grid technology.

We believe the event greatlyfacilitated the flow of information around Smart Grid as well as having the opportunity to meet and discuss ideas with key industry members. For more information, check out the stories and coverage highlighted on GE Reports.

Please checkout the story and video featured on GE Reports to learn more about the smart grid effort being carried out in Miami.

Our team of engineers, researchers, and utility operators and planners are working together to help Hawaii reduce its energy costs, reduce its dependence on imported oil and reduce its carbon footprint by taking steps towards a smarter grid that can accept unprecedented levels of wind and solar energy. As the world transitions to a more affordable, sustainable and secure energy system, these projects in Hawaii will help GE identify the most relevant technologies for enabling significant penetrations of wind and solar power around the world.

Unlike the mainland United States, where almost 90% of our electricity is generated by natural gas, coal and nuclear energy, Hawaii significantly relies on imported fossil fuels for electricity generation. Since oil meets almost 90% of Hawaii’s energy needs, the State of Hawaii was significantly affected by the skyrocketing oil prices we witnessed in 2008. This reliance on imported oil translates into approximately $7B leaving the State economy each year to purchase fuel. Unlike the rest of the United States, the islands of Hawaii do not have natural gas pipeline networks, have no indigenous coal resources and the state forbids the use of nuclear power. At more than 31 cents per kWh, residents of Hawaii spend nearly three times as much on electricity as most Americans in the continental United States. The State is committed to driving its energy cost downward and reducing its dependence on imported oil. Early in 2008 the Department of Energy and the State of Hawaii established the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative. The Initiative’s goal is for the state to meet 70 percent of its energy needs with clean energy sources by 2030.

To reach very high levels of renewable energy, Hawaii will leverage its impressive wind and solar profiles by deploying wind and solar power. Integrating very high percentages of these variable renewable energy sources does not come without challenges, particularly on islanded power systems that are not well interconnected to larger grids that can import or export imbalances in generation. Unlike traditional power sources that are predictable, utilities have no control over when the wind blows or when the sun shines. Imagine the challenge of meeting peak energy when the wind suddenly calms and other generation is needed to fill in the gap.

One of the many programs our team is working on in Hawaii is the Oahu Wind Integration Study. As part of this program our team will be assessing the challenges of integrating up to 400 MW of wind power on the Oahu grid, delivered to Oahu via undersea cable from the islands of Molokai and Lanai, each located more than 20 miles from the island of Oahu. Our team is building power systems models of the island of Oahu that will be used to simulate these wind projects and assess the technical and economic performance of various technologies, such as energy storage, advanced wind power plant controls, and other system-level controls, that could be deployed to address the day-to-day system operating challenges associated with very high levels of wind and solar power.

We are working very closely with the Operations and Planning teams at the Hawaiian Electric Company to ensure our study can help achieve the objective of increasing the content of renewable energy in the Hawaii power system in a way that is acceptable and realistic to the folks that maintain, operate and perform long-term planning for the power system. By addressing the challenges of integrating record-levels of wind and solar power, GE can start down the path of technology development for wind turbines, gas turbines, and transmission and distribution system products that can help the power system accept very high levels of renewable energy.

Last month, Google’s RE<C (Renewable Energy cheaper than Coal) group met with various engineers and scientists at Global Research to present their initiatives and discuss collaboration opportunities. Google recently put together a team of engineers and energy experts to focus on renewable energy sources such as solar thermal power, wind power technologies, and enhanced geothermal systems among other promising renewable technologies. All have the potential to be a cheaper source of energy than coal.

Google toured our Smart Grid lab, receiving a detailed presentation of the suite of electric grid enhancement technologies we are working on in the lab. These technologies range from large-scale transmission control to intelligent household appliances. And being a Smart lab, of course they all come equipped with full communications capabilities for efficient resource utilization.

Our tour ended in a healthy discussion and exchange of ideas relating to the future of renewable energy and how our energy grid will have to develop to meet growing energy demands. It is exciting to think what a collaboration between GE and Google in this important area could achieve.

I also wanted to mention that this month, the MIT magazine, Technology Review, is featuring a video on their Web site spotlighting Juan de Bedout, the Global Technology Leader of the Power Conversion Systems technologies organization at GE Global Research and the work we have been doing in the Smart Grid lab. I make a guest appearance in the video, so check it out here. As well,the January 2009 issue of Technology Review also features an in-depth story on the Smart Grid initiative.

I hope everybody had a happy holiday season and is looking forward to exciting things to come in 2009!