April 1, 2025
By Ed Torres.
More renewable energy is being generated than ever before. The International Energy Agency forecasts that renewable energy, with solar and wind in the lead, will overtake coal as the leading energy source by 2025. At the same time, demand for electricity is expected to triple over the coming decade. Meeting this demand means finding ways to integrate renewable energy into a grid built to be fed by fossil fuel, creating storage systems that ensure the power is available when we need it, and helping heavy industry decarbonize by electrifying.
GE Vernova Power Conversion & Storage, a business with more than a century of experience, is at the forefront of providing solutions for the challenges of electrification and renewable integration in three key areas: power stability, energy storage and industrial electrification.
Conventional power plants burn oil, natural gas, or coal to power a turbine. A synchronous generator turns that spinning energy into electricity. The stored kinetic energy, or inertia, in these large turbines allows the turbine to maintain its speed, even amid a sudden loss of power, preventing disruption to the power grid.
Renewable energy is different. Solar and wind power fluctuate, and as more renewable energy comes onto the grid, it decreases the amount of inertia available as a buffer for power disruptions, makes it more challenging to balance power supply and demand, and introduces voltage and frequency instability.
One way Power Conversion & Storage solves the inertia challenge is with its Rotating Stabilizers. These high-inertia rotating electrical machines create the inertia that wind and solar lack. Power quality – maintaining the proper voltage and frequency – can also be a challenge with renewables. The Rotating Stabilizers can help stabilize the grid by providing short circuit current, inertia support, and reactive power.
These solutions are already hard at work. In Scotland, our Rotating Stabilizers are enabling Statkraft, Europe’s largest generator of renewable energy, to integrate more renewable energy onto the UK’s national grid. With the stabilizers in place, the grid doesn’t need to run a fossil fuel-powered generator to achieve stability, cutting carbon emissions.
On-demand energy supply is another energy transition challenge. With more intermittent renewable energy powering the grid, energy storage technologies are essential to ensure that the power is there when we need it. We certainly know how to store energy in batteries, but doing it cost-effectively, efficiently and on a massive scale is a bigger challenge.
Power Conversion & Storage tackles that challenge by combining different storage technologies to optimize performance and cost. Our Battery Energy Storage Solutions (BESS) offer high capacity, efficient and reliable storage, and our experts’ research and development work continues to improve the efficiency and extend the life of our battery systems.
Data centers, which require massive amounts of power, are looking to battery storage to ensure they have a constant supply. In Queensland, Australia, Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners will host one of the largest battery storage installations in the Australian National Electricity Market at its Supernode Data Center and Battery Energy Storage Site. The 750MW BESS system offers large power users a stable power supply.
Electrifying heavy industry so it can access renewable energy poses a particularly difficult challenge, but it’s crucial if we want to see decarbonization goals come to fruition. Steel and cement industries each produce 7% of the world’s greenhouse gases and the chemical industry contributes another 4%, so decarbonization is urgent. GE Vernova offers a range of electrification solutions, from electric arc furnaces to bespoke generation systems, that deliver comprehensive solutions that maintain industrial productivity and are tailored to industrial needs.
For the steel industry, electric arc furnaces are replacing traditional blast furnaces that run on fossil fuels, but their high electricity needs can disrupt the power grid. Power Conversion & Storage has developed Direct Feed, an advanced, digital power supply that connects directly to the grid so that steelmakers can precisely manage the electricity flow to their furnaces. SSAB, a steelmaker in Oxelösund, Sweden, is using the Power Conversion & Storage modular multi-level converter (MMC)-based direct feed system to power its high-temperature electric arc furnace on its path to deliver fossil fuel-free steel by 2030. The MMC uses advanced injection-enhanced gate transistor technology to maintain high power quality and reliability without disrupting the grid.
Power Conversion & Storage is also working closely with the US Navy to support a new generation of advanced naval surface vessels. Power Conversion & Storage will design and deliver two fully electric Propulsion Load Systems for the Navy’s land-based testing facilities. The systems will comprise a full suite of power conversion technologies, including propulsion load electric motors, E-houses, power electronic motor drives, switchboards, motor control centers, load banks, transformers, and related essential infrastructure. It’s just one example of GE Vernova’s leadership in providing energy-efficient electric propulsion technologies for naval applications.
The energy transition is complex. Power Conversion & Storage experts delve deeply into industry challenges to find the solutions. We take pride in our ability to solve these challenges with specialized and advanced technology, but we prioritize collaboration so that we can walk beside our customers on their electrification and decarbonization journey.