GE allocates USD 500,000 for grid efficiency innovations

(ADPnews) - Nov 19, 2010 - General Electric (NYSE:GE) on Wednesday said it awarded a total of USD 500,000 (EUR 367,000) to five firms under an open innovation challenge for ideas to create more efficient grids and grid technologies.

The "GE Ecomagination Challenge: Powering the Grid", launched in July, is in line with the company's strategy to speed up the development of next-generation power grid and global energy transformation through collaboration, GE said. The USD-200-million Ecomagination campaign also includes renewables and green buildings.

Each of the five winners under the grid challenge will receive USD 100,000 to advance their ideas.

The awarded companies are: US Capstone Metering for its intelligent water meter that can create its own power; UK ElectricRoute for developing a cyber-secure network infrastructure that allows two-way communications grid monitoring and substation automation from wind and solar farms; Israel's GridON for creating a technology that solves short-circuiting and outages from overload electric grids by enabling precise control over their flow and power; Lebanon's IceCode for its technology that instantly de-ices wind turbine blades so they never slow or shut down; and Israel's WinFlex, which invented a lightweight inflatable wind turbine.

(USD 1.0 = EUR 0.734)

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