Greentech Lead America: GE announced that GE’s Grid
IQ “Solutions as a Service” (SaaS) offering is one of nine industrial
service technologies that are creating more modern, interconnected
businesses in a 21st century economy.
Grid IQ SaaS is a cloud-based grid management
fee-for-service system aimed at meeting the operational technology needs of
smaller and mid-market utilities that want to avoid the overhead expenses
involved with developing their own smart grid management networks.
The SaaS technology combines the benefits of advanced
metering infrastructure, outage management systems, interactive voice response,
demand optimization systems and geospatial information systems into simple,
hosted, subscription-based packages.
GE chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt, said, “The internet has
changed the way we consume information and talk with each other, but now it can
do more. By connecting intelligent machines to each other and ultimately to
people and by combining software and big data analytics, we can push the
boundaries of physical and material sciences to change the way the world
works.”
“The City of Norcross is the first municipality in
Georgia to take advantage of our Grid Modernization service, which provides a
low-risk improvement of utility operations and ultimately benefits their
customers,” Immelt added.
Already, cities in Georgia are partnering with GE and
utilities to utilize the Grid IQ SaaS tools to improve energy efficiency and to
reduce cost.
With the world’s electricity demand expected to increase
by more than 70 percent by 2035, GE’s Grid IQ SaaS and other solutions are
being deployed to help utilities around the world modernize their grid networks
to more effectively meet their growing capacity, environmental and security
needs, the company said.
Grid IQ SaaS allows utilities to monitor, manage and
control their grid more intelligently. Using a cloud-computing services model,
these capabilities can be deployed in 50 percent less time than traditional
turnkey project models and 10 percent of the estimated implementation cost.
This empowers utilities to embark upon grid modernization projects without
worrying about the financial impact of ongoing IT operations.
GE’s SaaS offering allows the utility to modernize its
operations on an OPEX basis versus a CAPEX basis, the company claims. This
change can minimize the utilities’ initial project expenses, and smaller
utilities and cooperatives supporting municipalities can expect benefits that
could increase their net income. Grid IQ SaaS replaces the utilities’ IT
infrastructure requirements with cloud-based computing and helps utilities
manage risks associated with long-term technology investment decisions. SaaS
transfers the investment need from the utility to GE by deploying a standard
system.