Behind-the-Scenes Look at GE’s Smart Grid Strategy Aug 4, 2009

By all rights, General Electric should have been a Smart Grid pioneer. It had the technology. It had the breadth. It had the industry experience. And it had a CEO —Jeffrey Immelt —who wanted to be on the forefront of all things green (as witness the company’s ecoImagination campaign).

Yet GE was notably absent during the early years. When our Smart Grid Central analysts originally profiled the company, they pointed to “pockets of technical excellence” marred by the lack of a “merged, coherent story.” (See link to story below.)

I recently spent time with John McDonald, General Manager of T&D Marketing for GE Energy. From what I can see, GE is quickly catching up. Three things in particular make me believe that GE will start marching at the front of the parade:

· A roadmapping initiative for utilities

· An internal roadmap for GE’s own efforts

· Updates and new applications for its GIS tool

Helping Utilities Build Maps to the Future

It was back in 2007 that I first started pounding the table about the lack of roadmaps for utilities. (See link below.) Experts such as McDonald and SGN contributor Erich Gunther were touting roadmaps years before that. A roadmap becomes a touchstone to judge future purchasing decisions; to ensure that the pieces will fit together; and to avoid overlap and redundancy. McDonald says flatly that utilities are unlikely to succeed at the Smart Grid without a roadmap that includes:

· The objectives of the utility

· The available technologies

· The standards

· The business case

Unhappily, few utilities have either the technical depth or the “social engineering” skills to bring together siloed departments and generate a coherent, multi-year game plan.

Enter General Electric, which is building the tools, processes, and personnel to help utilities with the task. Utilities will get a plan based on sound systems engineering, and GE will undoubtedly gain some additional sales. (IBM has certainly benefited from its in-house consulting practice.)

Eating Its Own Dog Food

GE has also put itself through the same roadmapping process. As a result, its previously haphazard Smart Grid efforts have been rationalized around five “pillars:”

1. Transmission Optimization

2. Distribution Optimization

3. Demand Optimization

4. Asset Optimization

5. Design & Workforce Productivity

Smallworld Getting a Refresh Too

I was interested to hear that the GE’s Smallworld Geographical Information System is being upgraded as well. In its profile, Smart Grid Central said Smallworld didn’t seem to be “keeping pace with a world that includes Google Maps.” But McDonald says that Smallworld is finally being ported from its proprietary database to Oracle, making its core platform more in line with industry standards.

Equally important, GE will be rolling out a series of applications and extensions, some built in-house, but many others built by GE partners (including many from outside the U.S.). Those applications will contribute heavily to at least two of the GE pillars, Asset Optimization and Design & Workforce Productivity. And when you think about breaking down the barriers between departments and sharing information, it is obvious that a central GIS function is almost mandatory.

There’s still plenty of work for GE to put its plan into action and to make sense of its different brands, many of which were gained by acquisition but never fully integrated. Even so, I see strong evidence that GE is quickly shouldering its way forward and may soon join IBM at the front of the Smart Grid parade