GE is going through a major rebuilding phase. With fraud allegations and mismanagement, the greatest industrial company in American history is in a rut. Could energy storage with batteries save the conglomerate’s business? Erin Ailworth explores the idea in The Wall Street Journal:
HOUSTON— General Electric Co. GE 1.53% plans to unveil a new battery platform Wednesday as it seeks to become a leader in the emerging market of storing electricity.
The giant platform called GE Reservoir will be able to store power generated by wind turbines and solar panels for later use. It will also be able to be used to add jolts of power when needed to stabilize voltage and frequency on the electric grid.
The battery storage market, currently tiny, is expected to grow considerably in the next decade—and already features big-name competitors including Tesla Inc., TSLA -1.54%which deployed an enormous battery system in Australia last year. Siemens AG paired with AES Corp. last year to launch Fluence Energy LLC, a joint venture that is building what is expected to be the world’s largest lithium-ion battery in California.
“Energy storage is like a Swiss Army knife—there are so many things you can do with it,” Eric Gebhardt, vice president and strategic technology officer at GE Power, who is scheduled to talk about batteries at the CERAWeek energy conference here Thursday. The battery being unveiled—a 1.2 megawatt unit—is the first in a series GE plans to launch under the Reservoir platform.
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