The GE Brief: March 30, 2021

BIG DEAL
 
CFM International, a 50-50 joint company between GE and French aerospace powerhouse Safran Aircraft Engines, announced this week that its efficient LEAP-1B jet engines will power 100 new Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 MAX jets. With this new deal, Southwest will have a total of 800 LEAP engines installed on its planes.
 
Fleet feat: Since 1981, every Boeing 737, one of the world’s best-selling jets, has been equipped with engines from CFM. Southwest currently operates the largest fleet of the planes — some 730 Boeing 737 jets. “We are excited to take yet another monumental step forward in our long-standing partnership with Southwest Airlines,” said Gaël Méheust, president and CEO of CFM International. Delivery of the new planes is scheduled to begin in 2022.
 
Click here to learn more about CFM’s innovative LEAP-1B engine.
 

UNDER THE SEA
 
Conceived by the utility giant RWE, the Sofia offshore wind farm will generate 1.4 gigawatts off the coast of England when it comes online in the middle of the decade. GE Renewable Energy’s Grid Solutions division struck a deal last fall, together with Sembcorp Marine, to bring electricity onshore from Sofia through a 220-kilometer-long subsea cable. This week, GE and Sembcorp signed the full contract for the transmission system, which includes both the offshore converter platform and onshore converter station.
 
Castle in the sea: Bringing electricity onshore involves huge, impregnable offshore fortresses called converter stations, which stand in the middle of the sea, pool the electricity generated by the dispersed turbines, and package it for transmission via an undersea cable. GE will build one of the most powerful and most remote offshore converter stations in the world, an ambitious undertaking that relies on expertise the company has gained over the years at its research park in Stafford, England. The heart of the station will be a system of valves to convert the alternating current from the turbines to direct current for efficient transport; the brain of it will be sophisticated digital controls that give operators a comprehensive view of the entire system.
 
Learn more about Sofia here.

COOLEST THINGS ON EARTH ?
 
1. Smarty Pants
MIT researchers have designed clothing with intelligent, touch-sensitive fibers that can detect the wearer’s pose or activity and even predict what movements they’ll make.
 
2. Moon Crawlers
The European Space Agency is planning a mission to map and explore lunar caves using a tethered probe and a “swarm of small robots.”
 
3. Engineering Immunity
Researchers at the National Cancer Institute have modified a type of immune cell to activate a cancer-fighting response in organs where cancer may spread.
 
Learn more here about this week’s Coolest Things On Earth.
 

— QUOTE OF THE DAY —

“The potential for wind intensity is much higher if you go deeper into the sea. The only constraint that was there until now was the transmission technology and the economic feasibility of that technology.”
 
— Raj Iyer, grid integration leader at GE Renewable Energy Grid Solutions

Quote: GE Reports. Images: Southwest Airlines, GE Renewable Energy.