mexico renews itself - ProMéxico

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The
Renewable
World of GE
At present, GE is in the
process of executing its first
large-scale wind project in
Mexico, a wind farm in the
southern part of Monterrey,
Nuevo León, where eight
GE wind turbines will be
installed to supply energy to
several municipalities.
Since it first came to Mexico, General Electric has
been an engineering pioneer. Now, this US company
leads efforts in renewable energy technologies
through its three divisions: GE Power & Water, GE
Energy Management and GE Oil & Gas.
____
by gustavo aréchiga
photos courtesy of ge
In less than 80 years, humanity has taken a quantum leap
regarding the way people use certain resources for survival.
Even though there is still a long way to go, the race towards
renewable energies has already begun.
General Electric (GE), which began manufacturing electric
light bulbs in 1896, has the proof that this trend is irreversible.
For this reason, the company created GE Energy, a division that
focuses on green technology and that has thrown amazing results.
This branch began operations in Mexico in 1929, and now has 21
plants, 8 service centers and 35,000 employees in the country.
This GE division involves three business cells: GE Power &
Water, GE Energy Management and GE Oil & Gas. With this structure,
it covers the entire spectrum of the Latin American green
trend and the manufacture of green products.
Its results are tangible; to date, more than 80 projects from the GE
portfolio have been certified as low energy consumption products.
Two essential examples of GE Energy technology are the carbon
cleaning process, or the Integrated Gasification Combined
Cycle, which uses less water to produce cleaner fuel with lower
emissions; and wind generators. Their combined benefit adds up
to 18.3 million tons of greenhouse gases per year that are no longer
being released into the environment –an amount similar to that
released by more than 3 million cars.
Both cases are relevant to Mexico, since GE Energy’s operations
in the country also include Ecomagination, a platform of
innovation and scientific research that leverages the company’s
green products.
Ecomagination represents GE’s global commitment to imagine
and build solutions that solve current environmental challenges
and benefit clients and society in general.
An Ecomagination premise indicates that a company’s financial
performance may be integrated with ecology, in order to accelerate
its profit growth. GE knows that Mexico provides fertile
ground for driving this long-range vision.
“Mexico is fortunate to be a country that boasts strong winds and
intense solar radiation year-round. It also has a government that recognizes
the advantages of investing in efficient and renewable energy,
where laws and incentives have been implemented. A good country,
good resources and a good government that is sending investment
signals towards this sector,” says Robert Pérez, Director of GE Energy.
According to Pérez, one of the company’s key business lines is
wind energy –GE is a world leader in this sector, to the extent that
it turns on one new wind turbine generator approximately every
three hours.
Wind is so important to GE that since it entered the industry
through its acquisition of Enron Wind 10 years ago, it has installed
18,000 turbines and has increased the worldwide business capacity
from 500 MW to 28 gigawatts (GW).
A few months ago, Vic Abate, Vice President of GE’s Energía
Renovable, said that “In the last decade, the company has invested
2 billion usd in the wind industry. This investment has transformed
the industry while making wind an energy source that is
renewable, reliable, competitive and carbon-free.”
At present, GE is in the process of executing its first large-scale
wind project in Mexico. It has set up a wind farm in the southern
part of Monterrey, Nuevo León in the municipality of Santa Catarina,
with a production capacity of 22 MW. There, with an investment
of 48 million usd, Next Energy México will install eight GE
wind turbines of 103 meters of diameter that will supply energy to
the municipalities of Monterrey, Santa Catarina, Escobedo, Apodaca,
García and Los Ramones, through a 20-year contract.
None of this could be self-sustaining without a consistent
research effort. In Mexico, GE Energy guarantees its leadership
through the Center for Advanced Engineering (GEIQ), which has
been located in Querétaro since 1999. It is the largest complex in
Mexico, home to approximately 1,400 engineers.
The Center focuses on designing airplane and energy generation
turbines, and currently works alongside academic institutions
in seven Master’s programs and one PhD program.
“GE did not have a clear expectation of what this Engineering
Center would be. But the quality of the engineering and the personnel
was very good, so as the decade progressed, it extended substantially
until it reached the current number of engineers,” says Pérez.
Other projects that GE is working on in Mexico are related to
the generation of efficient energy through biogas and biomass. As
stated by Pérez, the country produces approximately 500 MW per
year by converting sugar cane waste into electricity.
In addition, the company is working on high-efficiency cogeneration
through natural gas turbines, and supplies solar panels and
equipment for residential and industrial use.
Another project which was announced recently involves the
two aeroderivative gas turbines to generate electricity that GE will
install in the new ALPEK Petrochemical Complex plant in Veracruz,
in collaboration with the Mexican government.
Furthermore, GE has just launched its WattStation Connect,
an application that will facilitate the administration of everything
related to recharging electric vehicles –from the car’s charge percentage
to remotely activating the charger and finding out the electricity
rate at a given time. According to company estimates, 25%
of vehicles circulating worldwide will be electric or connectable
by 2020, while 90% of them will be fully functional without fossil
fuels by 2040. Some WattStation Connect sites are already in
place in Mexico, mainly in Mexico City and Aguascalientes, as a result
of agreements signed between Nissan and local governments.
GE Energy offers products and services in more than 120 countries.
In Mexico, it has been in operation for more than 90 years
and the company is determined to continue playing a leading role
in the country’s energy history. n
www.ge-energy.com