The GE Brief: October 12, 2023

Dogger Bank Produces First Power
This week GE Vernova’s Offshore Wind business reached an important milestone when the first of its Haliade-X wind turbines at the Dogger Bank Wind Farm began producing power. The 13-plus-megawatt turbine is the first of 277 to become operational at the installation off the coast of England, which when completed will be the largest wind farm in the world, powering about 5% of the U.K.’s electricity demand. Read more.

Welcome to Hydrogen Island
South of Shanghai in the East China Sea, the bustling port of Zhoushan is about to become the site of some of China’s most ambitious economic development projects. As a demonstration of what hydrogen can do to lower CO2 emissions, the state-owned utility there has plans to deploy two of GE Vernova’s highly efficient 9HA.02 combined-cycle gas turbines, which can run on up to 50% hydrogen and produce two-thirds fewer CO2 emissions than similarly sized coal plants, as well as lower mercury, NOx, and SOx emissions. Read more.

Pros and Contrails
Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is already known to reduce carbon emissions by up to 85% over the fuel’s life cycle. Certain types of SAF also produce less soot than conventional jet fuel and therefore could help reduce contrails, which form in cold, humid air. This week Boeing announced plans to conduct flight tests along with GE Aerospace, NASA, United Airlines, and others to determine to what extent SAF can reduce contrails. Find out more.
 
The Boeing program is one example of collaboration across the aviation industry to reach net zero CO2 emissions by 2050. SAF offers the largest potential to reduce CO2 over the next 30 years or so, and it’s here to stay, said Gurhan Andac, GE Aerospace’s engineering fuels and fuel additives leader, at the recent Sustainable Aviation Futures North America conference in Houston. Read more here.