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Home / Bioethanol / News GE boosts "green" energy plans.Financial Times General Electric will today announce plans to double its investments in renewable energies to Dollars 6bn by 2010 in the latest sign of a push by big companies to capitalise on concerns over global warming and pollution. The financial arm of the US conglomerate believes that within two years alternative sources such as wind and solar power will account for almost a quarter of its total investments in energy and water, up from 10 per cent in 2006. The move by GE, which has been at the forefront of corporate America's efforts to respond to environmental fears, underlines the desire by traditional industrial companies to gain critical mass in «greener industries». GE has already invested more than Dollars 3bn buying stakes in renewable energy plants across the world. But senior executives, led by chairman and chief executive Jeffrey Immelt, believe the sector is poised for strong growth in the near future. The market for renewable energy is worth an estimated Dollars 60bn a year and is expected to expand rapidly as governments and utilities strive to reduce their dependence on fossil fuels and turn to cleaner energy. Alex Urquhart, chief executive of GE's energy financial services unit, which has total assets of more than Dollars 16bn, told the Financial Times that renewable energy was the division's fastestgrowing business. «We are really attracted by the size and potential of this market,» Mr Urquhart said. «This sector is proving to offer a lot more opportunities than we first thought.» Strong demand for renewable energy funding prompted GE to increase last year's target of Dollars 4bn in investments by 2010 to Dollars 6bn, he added. GE's most recent renewable energy deal was a Dollars 300m investment in a 600-megawatt portfolio of wind farms in Oregon, Minnesota, Illinois and Texas owned by a subsidiary of EDP Energias de Portugal, the Portuguese utility. GE executives say the company's top credit rating and vast cash resources put it in a strong position to invest in, and lend to, capital-intensive industries such as energy and water. The drive to invest in renewable energy is part of Mr Immelt's strategy of increasing GE's exposure to environmentally friendly industries with high growth prospects.
The initiative, called «ecomagination», includes pledges to grow revenues from «green» products to Dollars 20bn and increase research spending on cleaner technologies to Dollars 1.5bn by 2010.
Date: 14.01.2008 Comments:Leave your comment
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There is a critical shortage of infomraitve articles like this.
There is a critical shortage of infomraitve articles like this., 20.07.2011 21:53:51