Paris, FRANCE — GE Renewable Energy’s Grid Solutions business (NYSE:GE) has secured its first “Green Gas for Grid” – or “g³” (pronounced “g-cubed”) – industrial orders. Together, German’s specialty chemicals leader Evonik and UK’s Omexom, an Engineering Procurement and Construction (EPC) company, recently ordered a total of 18 g³ gas-insulated switchgear (GIS) bays.
g³ is GE’s game-changing alternative to sulphur hexafluoride (SF₆), the world’s most potent greenhouse gas widely used in high-voltage equipment, including switchgear bays. Switchgear bays are found at substations and help dispatch or cut electrical power in case of a problem on the grid.
g³ products feature the same high performance and reliability as SF₆ equipment but have a gas mass with more than a 99% reduced CO₂ equivalent value. More importantly, life-cycle assessments (LCAs) have shown that g³ products have a greatly reduced CO₂ impact on the environment compared with SF₆ products. Additionally, g³ products do not cause pollution transfers to other environmental indicators because they have the same compact dimensions as traditional SF₆ products.
Evonik signed a contract for 10 F35-145kV g³ GIS bays for its Marl Chemical Park in western Germany. Commissioning is estimated for June 2021. Omexom selected GE as its 132 kV GIS supplier for an industrial customer’s waste plant in the UK. The contract for eight 145 kV GIS bays using g³ was signed in March, with commissioning estimated for September 2021.
Commenting on its g³ order, Jürgen Bücker, Head of Regulation Management Energy Networks at Evonik said: “g³ was a natural choice for Evonik. Not only do the g³ products offer us the same reliability and ease of handling as our previous SF₆ equipment, they will go a long way in helping us reach our goal of halving our absolute Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 2025.”
“Our industrial customer chose g³ due to its drastically reduced impact on the environment,” said Christopher Niven, Operations Manager at Omexom. “Our customer was particularly impressed by the fact that g³ offers the best overall environmental life-cycle assessment of SF₆-free gas-insulated switchgear equipment,” he added.
“We are delighted to have received our first industrial orders for our g³ high-voltage equipment. This demonstrates customers’ confidence in g³ products as a game-changing alternative to SF₆ products beyond the transmission and distribution industry,” said Emanuel Bertolini, Chief Commercial Officer at GE’s Grid Solutions.
With these two industrial orders, GE has now sold more than 100 g³ GIS bays since launching g³ on the market in 2016. Eighteen transmission and distribution utilities have installed g³ equipment at a total of 26 sites across Europe. Together, these utilities have avoided the use of more than 565,000, tons of CO₂ equivalent on the grid, With the largest 145 kV GIS SF₆-free installed base, g³ is the leading SF₆-free solution for high-voltage equipment.
SF₆ is estimated to contribute 23,500 times more emissions than CO₂, if leaked, and can remain in the atmosphere for up to 3,200 years.
The development of g³ has taken more than ten years of dedicated work by GE’s research and development teams in France and Switzerland in collaboration with 3M.
For more information on GE’s high-voltage g³ substation equipment and roadmap to 2025, visit our website.
Click here for GE’s g³ interactive application.
About GE Renewable Energy
GE Renewable Energy is a $15 billion business that combines one of the broadest portfolios in the renewable energy industry to provide end-to-end solutions for our customers demanding reliable and affordable green power. Combining onshore and offshore wind, blades, hydro, storage, utility-scale solar, and grid solutions as well as hybrid renewables and digital services offerings, GE Renewable Energy has installed more than 400 gigawatts of clean renewable energy and equipped more than 90% of utilities worldwide with its grid solutions. With nearly 40,000 employees present in more than 80 countries, GE Renewable Energy creates value for customers seeking to power the world with affordable, reliable and sustainable green electrons. Follow us at www.ge.com/renewableenergy, on www.linkedin.com/company/gerenewableenergy, or on www.twitter.com/GErenewables
About GE’s Grid Solutions
Grid Solutions, a GE Renewable Energy business, serves customers globally with more than 15,000 employees in approximately 80 countries. Grid Solutions helps enable utilities and industry to effectively manage electricity from the point of generation to the point of consumption, helping to maximize the reliability, efficiency and resilience of the grid. For more about GE Renewable Energy’s Grid Solutions business, visit https://www.gegridsolutions.com
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