GE secures first industrial orders for g3 switchgear
GE Renewable Energy’s Grid Solutions business has secured its first “Green Gas for Grid” (g³) industrial orders in the form of 18 gas-insulated switchgear (GIS) bays.
German’s specialty chemicals leader Evonik and UK’s Omexom, an Engineering Procurement and Construction (EPC) company, recently ordered a total of 18 g³ gas-insulated switchgear (GIS) bays.
Evonik signed a contract for 10 F35-145kV g³ GIS bays for its Marl Chemical Park in western Germany. Commissioning is estimated for June 2021. Omexom selected GE as its 132 kV GIS supplier for an industrial customer’s waste plant in the UK. The contract for eight 145 kV GIS bays using g³ was signed in March, with commissioning estimated for September 2021.
g³ is GE’s alternative to sulphur hexafluoride (SF₆), the world’s most potent greenhouse gas widely used in high-voltage equipment, including switchgear bays.
g³ products feature the same high performance and reliability as SF₆ equipment but have a gas mass with more than a 99% reduced CO₂ equivalent value. More importantly, life-cycle assessments (LCAs) have shown that g³ products have a greatly reduced CO₂ impact on the environment compared with SF₆ products. Additionally, g³ products do not cause pollution transfers to other environmental indicators because they have the same compact dimensions as traditional SF₆ products.
Commenting on its g³ order, Jürgen Bücker, Head of Regulation Management Energy Networks at Evonik said: “g³ was a natural choice for Evonik. Not only do the g³ products offer us the same reliability and ease of handling as our previous SF₆ equipment, they will go a long way in helping us reach our goal of halving our absolute Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 2025.”
“Our industrial customer chose g³ due to its drastically reduced impact on the environment,” said Christopher Niven, Operations Manager at Omexom. “Our customer was particularly impressed by the fact that g³ offers the best overall environmental life-cycle assessment of SF₆-free gas-insulated switchgear equipment,” he added.
“We are delighted to have received our first industrial orders for our g³ high-voltage equipment. This demonstrates customers’ confidence in g³ products as a game-changing alternative to SF₆ products beyond the transmission and distribution industry,” said Emanuel Bertolini, Chief Commercial Officer at GE’s Grid Solutions.
With these two industrial orders, GE has now sold more than 100 g³ GIS bays since launching g³ on the market in 2016. Eighteen transmission and distribution utilities have installed g³ equipment at a total of 26 sites across Europe. Together, these utilities have avoided the use of more than 565,000, tons of CO₂ equivalent on the grid, With the largest 145 kV GIS SF₆-free installed base, g³ is the leading SF₆-free solution for high-voltage equipment.
SF₆ is estimated to contribute 23,500 times more emissions than CO₂, if leaked, and can remain in the atmosphere for up to 3,200 years.
Source: GE
Photo (for illustrative purposes): Image courtesy of GE
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