General Electric Targets Solar and Wind for Business Growth

General Electric, one of the world's largest companies with a major energy portfolio, made two announcements earlier this week that underscore the firm's belief that there major opportunities to be had in the renewable energy sector.

On Monday GE Energy announced the acquisition of Norway-based ScanWind, which develops advanced drive train and control wind turbine technologies aimed at offshore development. GE Energy, which has a major portion of the on-shore wind turbine market, clearly believes that it needs to bolster its off-shore capability and this acquisition puts it in a better position to do so. ScanWind has particular expertise in turbines in the Atlantic Ocean off Norway.

As reported in the Financial Times ("GE Looks to Offshore Turbines for Growth," Sept. 14, 2009), "Most industry experts believe a huge expansion of offshore wind will be needed for the European Union to hit its target of devising 20 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020."

A day later, GE Energy announced that it has started building production lines at its Loveland, Colorado (about 30 miles north of Denver) plant to produce more solar panels. Word of this development was first noted in the Financial Times ("GE Plans to Ramp Up Solar Panel Production," Sept. 15, 2009). Jeff Immelt, the chief executive office of General Electric, said in that story that energy is "clearly one of the big industrial businesses filled with what I would call seismic change, whether it's clean energy or scarcity of resources."

Admittedly some politicians -- especially many of the "Blue Dog Democrat" variety in the U.S. -- are beginning to go wobbly (thank you Margaret Thatcher for a most useful description) on energy legislation. However, when one of the world's major companies aggressively pursues a certain market, people should accordingly take note.