GE Vernova – Purpose Built for the Energy Transition

GE Vernova is on a mission to electrify the planet while simultaneously working to decarbonize it. With its technologies already powering a significant percentage of installed power generation capacity across the continent, EnergyNet spoke to Mai Abdelhalim, President, Africa, to find out more in advance of PAS25.

Your technologies are already powering over 40% of Africa – can you tell us more about current projects and future plans?

Purpose built for the energy transition, GE Vernova brings a wide portfolio of technologies from across the power value chain to support customers and other stakeholders in Africa to provide the lower-carbon generation, transmission and distribution, and grid orchestration solutions that countries in the region require to support economic growth and contribute to a lower-carbon energy future.

Looking ahead, we will continue to accelerate the path to more reliable, affordable, and sustainable energy, while helping our customers power economies.

For example, GE Vernova is providing gas turbines for an upcoming 300 MW combined-cycle power plant in Senegal, near the capital, Dakar. The first gas-to-power project in the country, this new power plant is expected to supply approximately 25% of the country’s electricity supply.

 

You've launched a 100% hydrogen-ready aeroderivative gas turbine, are there other innovations in hydrogen to look forward to?

Hydrogen-powered gas turbines will play an important role in the energy transition, helping provide dispatchable electricity to the grid for grid balancing, decarbonizing peaking assets, and other scenarios.

We have more than 8.5 million hours of experience running our turbines on hydrogen, and we are working with customers around the world, including in Africa, to expand hydrogen fuel utilization for energy decarbonization through both demonstrations and commercial projects.

An example of the former was the successful operation at COP27 in Egypt of a GE Vernova aeroderivative gas turbine powered by a hydrogen blend – the first such demonstration in Africa.

Even more recently, in a reflection of our ongoing work on hydrogen, in January we announced the successful completion of the validation test campaign for our advanced Dry Low NOx (DLN) hydrogen combustion technology for B- and E-class gas turbines that will give operators more flexibility in the use of hydrogen-blended fuels up to 100% hydrogen.

Many of our other gas turbines can run on hydrogen-fuel blends today, and we are working on other projects to ensure they are ready for 100% hydrogen to meet future decarbonization goals.

 

Can you tell us about some of your recent work in transmission?

GE Vernova’s Electrification solutions facilitate the reliable, safe, and secure transfer and orchestration of electricity from generation sources to consumers across various grids and systems.

This involves the use of grid-related software, hardware, automation, and controls. In Africa, this is especially important, as strengthening national and regional grids, along with major interconnection projects, is essential to delivering more affordable and reliable electricity across the continent.

Our work strengthening the grid in the region includes providing GE Vernova's GridOS® orchestration software to the West African Power Pool’s (WAPP) Information and Coordination Centre (ICC) in Benin.

 

How important do you think this summit is, at this time, for Africa?

This is not my first time attending the Powering Africa Summit. The Summit serves as an important platform for shaping Africa's energy future, bringing together government leaders, private sector, technology providers, project developers, policymakers, civil society, financiers and other stakeholders. This unique convergence of stakeholders fosters meaningful discussions on Africa's energy transition, necessary technologies, and the financial and regulatory solutions required to drive progress.

 

What kind of conversations are you most looking forward to having at PAS, and what outcomes would you like to see?

We look forward to having several different types of conversations at PAS this year.

On a policy level, we look forward to speaking with government officials and policymakers, multilateral organizations, financial organizations and other stakeholders to identify collaborative steps that can further advance power projects in the region.

Reliable power infrastructure is fundamental to economic development, yet challenges such as grid reliability, transmission bottlenecks, and technical losses continue to hinder progress.

I look forward to engaging with industry leaders on solutions to enhance grid resilience by leveraging new technologies.

Whether renewables or gas power generation, it is equally vital that there is a resilient grid in place that can evacuate, transmit and distribute electricity, so it efficiently gets from where it’s generated to where it’s consumed.

This includes strengthening the interconnection between Power Pools in the region.

On a more technical level, we hope that we will speak with developers, grid operators and plant operators to discuss best practice technical solutions regarding generation, transmission and distribution solutions that can help developers and operators increase plant and system reliability, lower costs and support decarbonization.

These conversations also should extend to hardware and software upgrades, including smart grid orchestration software, that can increase plant or grid efficiency and prepare transmission and distribution lines for increased renewables generation.

 

Mai Abdelhalim will be speaking in two sessions at PAS25:  Democratizing Clean Energy Financing and De-Risking Projects, and How Great is the Scale of Opportunities for Hydrogen/PPPs and IPPs in North Africa?