General Electric Co. called for entries in a 10-week contest to speed global power-grid upgrades, promising investment and marketing help for the best submissions from a $200 million fund.
Jeffrey Immelt, chief executive officer, is seeking ideas to tap into what the Electric Power Research Institute estimates is a $200 billion market for smart-grid technologies in the next decade. GE is spending about $10 billion on environmentally friendly products by 2015 through his five-year-old “ecomagination” program.
“We want to accelerate the process,” Immelt told reporters today in a conference call from an event in San Francisco to present the contest and new products such as an electric car- charging station. “We want to make GE really the go-to brand both from a customer and entrepreneurial standpoint.”
GE is the world’s biggest maker of jet engines, locomotives and power-plant turbines. It initiated the “ecomagination Challenge” in collaboration with venture capital firms Emerald Technology Ventures AG, Foundation Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Beyers and RockPort Capital. About $100 million of the fund will be provided by GE, with the rest from the firms.
Full story: GE Puts Up $200 Million in Power Grid Idea Challenge – BusinessWeek