US power giant GE announced a four year, $1.4bn investment in a business unit targeting on site power generation, a market the firm believes will grow 40% faster than demand for traditional power station generation.

The division will sell three product lines Aeroderivative Gas Turbines, Jenbacher Gas Engines and Waukesha Gas Engines.

The company chose Jakarta, Indonesia to make its announcement.

GE Vice Chairman John G. Rice and Lorraine Bolsinger, leader of GE’s new Distributed Power business, gathered today with business and government officials in Jakarta to launch GE’s Distributed Power, a new business that combines three product lines——aimed to better serve the distributed power space. GE announced an investment in the newly created business of $1.4 billion over four years to help meet the world’s growing demand for on-site power systems that are easier to finance, faster to install and more efficient and reliable for customers.

In  a research paper “The Rise of Distributed Power” GE said ‘distributed power will grow 40 percent faster than global electricity demand between now and 2020.’

Countries are seeking more reliable, efficient energy options near the point of use—on or off the grid, the report said.

“in both developing and developed economies, industry is using distributed power to improve industrial and residential energy efficiency and ensure they have emergency power in the event of natural disasters and other unplanned outages. At the same time, the oil and gas industry relies heavily on on-site power to provide electricity to remote operations as well as mechanical power to pump and compress gas.

Lorraine Bolsinger, president and CEO of GE’s Distributed Power business, said, “With more than 1.3 billion people lacking access to reliable power today, our Distributed Power business is ideally positioned to serve communities in both developing and industrialized countries where we see a growing demand for distributed power solutions to improve local energy security and comply with more stringent environmental regulations. The proliferation of distributed power systems is benefitting people and industries around the world because power is crucial to improving the quality of life and economic development.”

GE announced a number of partnerships and contract wins.
Two major Southeast Asia gas engine supply and service agreements with distributed power project developer Navigat Energy Pte Ltd will provide 100 new Jenbacher gas engines that will generate a total of 330 megawatts at a number of independent power production sites in Indonesia and Thailand.

An agreement between GE and Malaysian company Green & Smart Sdn Bhd (GNS), which entails providing a proven solution for waste-to-power using GNS’ patented technology in anaerobic digestors and GE’s Jenbacher gas engine technology to produce power and supply to the Malaysian electricity grid.
GE Oil & Gas and GE’s Distributed Power businesses signed a memorandum of understanding with PLN Enjiniring to develop an integrated virtual pipeline power generation pilot project in remote islands of Indonesia. The project will pull from GE Oil & Gas’ Distributed Gas Solutions portfolio of small-scale, modular natural gas fueling solutions combined with Distributed Power’s power generation gas turbine and engine technology to offer a comprehensive marginal gas-to-power solution with no pipeline infrastructure, known as a “virtual” pipeline.