PrintPrintJohn Krenicki, vice chairman of GE and president and CEO of GE Energy Infrastructure, said at a meeting Tuesday with Greenville-area leaders that the future is bright for the company’s varied energy products so long as protectionist laws do not ignite a worldwide trade war.
By James T. Hammond
jhammond@scbiznews.com
Published April 15, 2009
When the U.S. market for General Electric’s giant gas turbine electric power generators collapsed a few years ago, GE Energy’s engineers quickly regrouped and developed a major business line in wind turbine generators.
Today, the company’s Greenville plant on Garlington Road is again humming with activity, building these 60-ton engines of renewable energy.
GE also has been driving new activity at the Port of Charleston. S.C. State Ports Authority officials recently announced that the National Shipping Co. of Saudi Arabia has added Charleston to its East Coast ports rotation. The decision was driven in part by the port’s proximity to General Electric’s gas turbine manufacturing plant in Greenville.
John Krenicki, vice chairman of GE and president and CEO of GE Energy Infrastructure, met recently with Greenville-area government officials and business leaders to update them on GE Energy’s Greenville operations.
He indicated that the future is bright for the company’s varied energy products, which include gas turbines, wind turbines and nuclear plants, so long as protectionist laws do not ignite a worldwide trade war that could cripple the Greenville operation’s ability to sell its products abroad.
Half the wind turbines in use in the United States today are made by GE, he said. And the company sees an equally positive outlook for the giant, new-technology windmills abroad.
“This is an export-oriented facility,” Krenicki said. “Our 1.5-megawatt engine is very competitive. We just shipped unit No. 10,000 last year. This is a winner. It is what is going to a lot of our U.S. customers.”
And General Electric engineers are working on a new, 2.5-MW machine, he said.
Meanwhile, Krenicki said GE Energy continues to find a strong market for its gas turbines in the Middle East, where 60% of electricity generated is on General Electric equipment.
More than 20 gas turbines have been ordered for new power generation in Iraq.
“Iraq for us is the next Saudi Arabia,” he said. “This $3 billion transaction for us is just the beginning.”
GE Energy had almost $39 billion in revenue in 2008, up from about $25 billion in 2006, and one of its biggest customers is Saudi Arabia.
“One reason we’ve done so well in Saudi Arabia is because we’ve been there for 50 years. We never left,” Krenicki said.
The Greenville plant has diversified to meet the growing demand for renewable energy sources.
“This business in 2002 manufactured more than 300 gas turbines, the bulk of which were manufactured in Greenville, and 200 of which went to U.S. customers,” Krenicki said. “That business was more than $20 billion in 2002. That business collapsed on us.”
Last year, GE manufactured 116 gas turbines in Greenville.
“But we offset it with our wind business, renewables,” Krenicki said. “The Greenville team re-engineered the business, entered a new space.”
The financial crisis is impacting GE Energy’s business, he said. He expects 2009 to be a down year for GE Energy products, but there’s still growth in the Middle East, China and India.
The demand for electricity worldwide is widely expected to double over the next 20 years, Krenicki said. But protectionist legislation, so-called buy-American laws, threaten to make other countries retaliate with similar facilities, he said and added that such trade wars could threaten Greenville’s position as a powerful engine of export-driven growth.
“This is an export-driven facility,” he said. “There’s no better story than Greenville when it comes to exports.”
Reach James T. Hammond at 864-235-5677.
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