Digital Technology From GE Power Can Slash Emissions From Electricity Generation

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People who come to CleanTechnica for their news don’t normally applaud the use of fossil fuels to make electricity, but what if there was a way to slash carbon emissions from electricity generation? And what if the reduction was large enough to equal taking 250 million cars off the road every year? Would that get your attention? GE Power says it can do exactly that with its power generation software. Here’s how.

Say coal and we all shiver in horror. Burning coal to make electricity creates enormous amounts of carbon dioxide. Civilization depends on electrical power, but the emissions from coal are rapidly degrading the environment. Nevertheless, despite major advances in renewable energy sources like wind and solar, coal will remain the second largest source of electrical power at least through 2030 according to the 2016 International Energy Outlook compiled by the US Energy Information Administration.

GE Power says its energy management software can improve the efficiency of coal fired plants. An improvement of just 1 to 2% may not sound like much, but it would be enough to cut annual global emissions by 4.2% every year. That’s equivalent to taking 250 million internal combustion cars off the road. There are more than 1.2 billion cars on the road worldwide today and that number is expected to climb to more than 2 billion by the year 2035.

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Software solutions from GE Power can improve the efficiency of natural gas fired generating plants by 3% and boost the efficiency of wind turbines by a staggering 20% using Digital Windfarm software. Predix, another GE Power industrial platform, allows companies to better predict the strength and direction of wind so they can adjust their wind turbines to take maximum advantage of the power contained in air currents. Its software can also help reduce transmission loses on the utility grid and make energy storage systems operate more efficiently.

GE Power hardware is involved in producing one third of all the world’s electricity. Its software and digital controls are using terabytes of data provided by millions of digital sensors to help more than 40 customers around the globe to produce electricity more reliably with fewer emissions.

Source: GE Power

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