One of the challenges of transitioning to renewable energy sources is intermittency. Energy generated by solar panels and wind turbines can fluctuate in frequency and voltage, destabilizing the grid. With the growing reliance on electricity, its supply must be reliable, stable and predictable.

We are now at a tipping point in our clean energy journey where renewable energy is overtaking traditional energy sources to meet our electricity needs. Grid technology must keep pace.

Advanced grid-forming inverters are emerging as an essential tool for grid stability. They are playing a crucial role to allow utility operators to integrate more renewable, but intermittent, energy sources such as wind and solar, into the grid without introducing instability. Adding a Flexible Alternating Current Transmission Systems (FACTS) device called a Static Synchronous Compensator (STATCOM) with a grid-forming inverter and energy storage can improve the stability and increase the system strength by dynamically adjusting active and reactive power to counteract voltage and frequency changes in the power system. 

In a traditional thermal power system, large rotating generators have the mass to continue rotating for a time even when power is interrupted. This stored power, or inertia, has traditionally acted as energy storage to compensate the load and generation imbalances during grid disturbances. As renewable energy replaces thermal energy, the grid must have enough inertia to ensure the grid remains stable if the system encounters a disturbance.

Last year, GE Vernova introduced a grid-forming inverter with leading-edge technology that solves both problems. FACTSFLEX GFMe with grid-forming inverters and energy storage combines voltage and frequency control capabilities with high-capacity energy storage. These inverters can immediately deliver significant amounts of reactive and active power, balancing the grid during and after a disturbance or a fault.

The supercapacitor-based energy storage is controlled to emulate inertia by injecting active power when the frequency lapses and absorbing active power to counteract the rise of frequency. The system can immediately deliver or absorb 150 MW (example) of power for several seconds, enough to prevent adverse escalation of the disturbance. 

This is an exciting development for the acceleration of the energy transition. As more renewable energy comes online, these grid-forming inverters will be essential for reaching our global energy transition goals without sacrificing reliable, stable, and seamless electricity for all.


This article was written by GE Vernova's Philippe Piron, Chief Executive Officer, Electrification Systems

High-voltage direct current (HVDC) is a hot topic right now as we look for the most efficient ways to deliver enough decarbonized energy to meet the world’s fast-growing electrification needs. Yet HVDC is only part of the story. Medium-voltage direct current (MVDC) is the next chapter.

Two things are driving this urgent interest in MVDC: the growth in distributed energy resources and the need to integrate them into the grid, and the high electricity demands needed to power heavy industry, transportation, and data centers.

HVDC is the most efficient way to transfer bulk energy over long distances from the point of generation to the grid. Photovoltaics, which transform the sun’s rays into usable energy, also deliver direct current. Yet once these two energy sources reach the grid, they are transformed to less efficient alternating current (AC).

For industries that use large amounts of electricity avoiding the energy leakage associated with AC can amount to millions of dollars a year. While it’s more efficient to use DC, a direct HVDC connection delivers too much voltage. MVDC can bridge the gap by either stepping down HVDC for industrial use or stepping up AC wind power to DC so it can travel long distances.

MVDC is a breakthrough technology that is designed to enable these industries to make the most out of every electron. It will also help us to truly harness the power of solar energy, our most abundant and reliable renewable energy source, and wind power, which is a growing contributor to the energy mix. MVDC, by regulating voltage, has significant potential to power data centers, green hydrogen* gigaplants, and other electricity-intensive industries such as steel, metals and petrochemicals. It could transform transportation by electrifying rail grids and powering ship power distribution and propulsion. Our customers may realize savings by achieving greater energy efficiency and by eliminating costs for the equipment needed to switch between DC and AC.

To open this next chapter, we need to invest in more MVDC distribution infrastructure and surmount a few key technical challenges.

More distribution infrastructure would allow high-intensity industries to tap into the direct current line via a substation that steps down the voltage to a range that the industrial application can use – but without converting it to AC. These lower power rating tap-off points could enable more access to DC power for remote communities or a city infeed, as well as for industrial applications.

The technology should also allow for DC connections between the photovoltaics, storage and the grid without the loss of energy from the AC conversion, enabling better usage of solar energy.

The technical challenges for MVDC center on the ability to break current. Alternating current is easy to break as it approaches zero voltage, but direct current never dips to zero. GE Vernova is investing time, talent and research dollars into developing MVDC technology and a DC circuit breaker.

GE Vernova delivered Europe’s first MVDC link for Scottish Power Energy Networks Angle-DC project in 2017.

Our business is also working with a major US-based customer to understand the technical and economic benefits of a solar plus storage MVDC installation. We are also working with the GE Vernova Advanced Research Center to demonstrate elements of a solar MVDC system at their facility in Schenectady, NY.

*Green hydrogen is an industry-wide term for a fuel produced by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen using electrolysis powered by renewable energy sources, a process which produces no carbon dioxide emissions.

This article was written by GE Vernova's Philippe Piron, Chief Executive Officer, Electrification Systems.

The world’s power grids are digitizing at a rapid pace as the energy transition demands more electrification and integration of renewables. To maintain grid stability and reliability there is a need for increased connectivity across the network which, in addition to the exponential increase of new devices installed, is changing the cybersecurity threat landscape.

These new additions, and the increased complexity of the system, expand the attack surface for bad actors, giving them a whole new set of entry points into critical infrastructure. With interconnected transmission and distribution grids, attacks can come from multiple angles, at multiple levels, and with multiple objectives – from seeking financial gain to damaging critical infrastructure and disrupting the energy supply.

All utility providers must now consider cybersecurity as an essential component of operations.

At GE Vernova, we think about every aspect of energy delivery from the point of generation to its end use. When our customers come to us with their complex problems, we strive to deliver comprehensive solutions. That’s how we’re thinking about cybersecurity – as part of an integrated, multi-layered solution baked into digital substations and Grid Automation software.

Most of the grid asset owners have focused for almost a decade on securing infrastructure from cyber threats. These customers are now asking us to help fortify their defenses with more advanced offerings that use artificial intelligence, machine learning and predictive intelligence to detect intrusions. As the threat keeps on evolving, we are also being asked to continue assessing vulnerabilities and help define and integrate an appropriate cyber defense.

Earlier this year, we launched our portfolio of software defined automation solutions – GridBeats – designed for grid digitalization, helping to attain better visibility, faster deployment, increased resilience, and enhanced operations. Our GridBeats-cybersecurity offering includes a comprehensive suite of operational technology (OT) cybersecurity solutions and services that provide cyber awareness, network monitoring, cyber-threat intrusion detection and cyber-attack rapid incident response. This solution supports the broader goals of digital transformation and business growth while safeguarding critical OT assets and information, as well as maintaining compliance with evolving regulations.

To protect the grid infrastructure, we also need collaboration between industry players. Asset owners, regulators, government agencies, and manufacturers, need to work together to define standards, and enable the ecosystem to invest in improving our collective cybersecurity posture.

Of course, the innovation can’t stop there. The cyber threat landscape changes every day. When hackers defeat the mousetrap, we must build a better one. This requires continued investment in new solutions. This is an issue that won’t go away any time soon. People, knowledge and technology are key to protecting our critical infrastructure.

With the world depending on us in the energy industry to keep the lights on by electrifying and decarbonizing the world, cybersecurity deserves our attention.

An energy path that Thomas Edison envisioned but did not have the power electronics and digital technologies to create is now proving to be a transformative technology for electricity transmission system operators (TSOs) worldwide: Direct Current (DC).

Nikola Tesla outdueled Thomas Edison in the War of the Currents more than 140 years ago, establishing Alternating Current (AC) as the most convenient way to transmit electricity by using transformers to easily elevate and decrease voltage. Telsa’s solution was, however, not optimal. While DC allows a uniform circulation of electrons within a cable, the uneven circulation of AC creates inefficiencies that result in significant power losses. With AC, eddy current generated by the periodic change of magnetic fields creates additional resistance in the center of the conductor. That causes a skin effect in which electron density is greater at the surface of the conductor. This phenomenon increases the resistance within the conductor, which generates power losses via heat dissipation – called Joule effect. Second, AC generates electromagnetic fields in electric winding devices, which create non-efficient power called reactive power. For these reasons, High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) transmission losses can be up to 50% less than AC transmission, ensuring that more of what is generated reaches the intended destination.

These numbers matter. At a time when the world is increasingly electrifying, every electron counts. Efficiency is a key pillar for reaching net-zero. That’s why TSOs are overturning a century of convention to embrace HVDC. 

HVDC is essential for point-to-point transmission, such as connecting offshore renewables to the grid and moving bulk power over long land distances. It can also transmit bulk power in an energy efficient way via submarine links that connect islands or countries, as GE Vernova will do with its Eastern Green Link 1 project linking Scotland to the northeast of England. 

Power electronics and advanced digital computing now allow DC current to do much more: HVDC can interconnect desynchronized High-Voltage AC networks (varying phases or frequency) back-to-back. This allows transmission systems to connect from region to region, or country to country. 

This next step in HVDC technology aims to allow multiple HVDC terminals to be connected, enabling more power sharing and energy security across borders. The future HVDC grid will no longer be  messy point-to-point linear links, but rather a multi-point link. In this type of multi-terminal HVDC network, multiple nodes can connect with another one – creating a highly efficient highway of electrons.  

TenneT, the Dutch-German transmission systems operator, has begun laying the foundation for this with its standardized 2 GW HVDC offshore program designed to be multi-terminal ready. In March 2023, GE Vernova’s Electrification business entered into an agreement with TenneT to build five platforms – three in the Dutch North Sea and two in the German North Sea.

It’s a transformative moment similar to the telecommunications revolution we experienced in the 1980s when ultra-broadband communication networks connected the continents, creating the “Information Superhighway,” the foundation of the worldwide internet. We believe that HVDC will become the new “Electron Superhighway,” the worldwide foundational infrastructure for 21st century electrification and the energy transition.

GE Vernova is committed to playing a central role in forging the path to the future, working to meet the technical challenges that arise, and creating opportunities to push the energy transition ahead with forward-looking solutions. We believe that the next decade will be a promising time for investment in lower carbon energy and HVDC will be at the core. 

This article was written by GE Vernova's Philippe Piron, Chief Executive Officer, Electrification Systems.