GE secures first g³ high-voltage equipment orders for industrial usage
g3 is GE’s game-changing alternative to sulphur hexafluoride (SF6), the world’s most potent greenhouse gas widely used in high-voltage equipment
Image for illustration purposes
France, Paris: GE Renewable Energy’s Grid Solutions business has secured its first “green gas for grid” – or “g3 ” (pronounced “g-cubed”) – industrial orders.
Together, German’s specialty chemicals leader Evonik and UK’s Omexom, an engineering procurement and construction company, recently ordered a total of 18 g3 gas-insulated switchgear (GIS) bays.
g3 is GE’s game-changing alternative to sulphur hexafluoride (SF6), the world’s most potent greenhouse gas widely used in high-voltage equipment, including switchgear bays. Switchgear bays are found at substations and help dispatch or cut electrical power in case of a problem on the grid.
g3 products feature the same high performance and reliability as SF6 equipment but have a gas mass with more than a 99 % reduced equivalent value. More importantly, life-cycle assessments 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.
Evonik signed a contract for 10 F35 – 145 kV g3 GIS bays for its Marl Chemical Park in western Germany. Commissioning is estimated for June 2021.
Omexom selected GE as its 13 kV GIS supplier for an industrial customer’s waste plant in the UK. The contract for 8 145 kV GIS bays using g3 was signed in March, with commissioning estimated for September 2021.
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.”
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.
Source: GE