Lineage Power had revenues of approximately $450 million in 2010. The transaction is valued at approximately $520 million or eight times enterprise value on 2011 EBITDA basis. The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2011, subject to customary closing conditions, including receipt of regulatory approval. Lineage Power is headquartered in Plano, Texas, and has nearly 2,300 employees, with manufacturing operations in China, Mexico and India.

The deal is the latest in a series of announcements that will expand GE’s $40 billion energy portfolio of solutions for customers in vital industries. In October 2010, GE announced the signing of a contract to acquire Dresser Inc., a Dallas-based energy infrastructure company. Last month, the company announced its intention to make an offer for 100 percent of Wellstream Holdings PLC, a British oil pipe manufacturer.

“According to recent studies, there will be 1.1 billion smartphones sold globally by 2013,” said Dan Heintzelman, GE Energy Services president & CEO. “Every new mobile device plugs into an infrastructure that requires an ever increasing amount of high-quality power. The growth in high-bandwidth mobile internet applications and cloud computing is accelerating that demand. A globally networked planet needs a lot of power to keep spinning. Customers want efficient, reliable means to manage that power.”

Heintzelman adds, “As the data-driven economy grows, the addition of Lineage Power’s business platform continues the expansion of GE Energy’s offerings from the electric grid to datacenters, cell towers, routers, servers and circuit board electronics.”

Lineage Power complements GE because it is based on technology leadership, deep customer relationships, proven domain expertise of its employees, a strong services business and a global growth strategy. It is right within GE’s core expertise—managing electricity. GE’s technology investments and resources, and global reach and scale, are expected to help grow this business around the world and across industries.”

Read more: Press Release

GE Energy Financial Services and Plutonic acquired and resumed construction of the project a year ago. Since then, the project’s engineering, procurement and construction contractor, Mortenson Canada Corporation, has completed mechanical erection of all 48 wind turbine structures. Nine turbines have to date completed final commissioning testing and are available for operation. The substation and transmission lines have also been commissioned and energized, allowing for wind turbine commissioning.

The project, located 1,100 kilometres northeast of Vancouver near Chetwynd, will sell energy generated during commissioning-prior to the commercial operation date, or “COD” -to Powerex, a subsidiary of BC Hydro.

“The start of energy generation at the Dokie Wind Project represents Plutonic’s and GE Energy Financial Services’ first wind project in Canada and a solid new growth platform for Plutonic in wind energy,” said Donald McInnes, Vice-Chairman and CEO of Plutonic Power.

GE Energy Financial Services and Plutonic, through their jointly formed Dokie General Partnership, announced the resumption of project construction in December 2009. The $228 million project will generate 320,000-340,000 MWh/a and, in addition to the turbines, includes a substation and seven kilometres of 230 kV transmission lines. The project is expected to reach commercial operation by early 2011.

In addition to the Dokie Wind Project, GE and Plutonic also jointly developed British Columbia’s largest independent run-of-river hydro project, the East Toba River and Montrose Creek hydroelectric project.”

Source: Plutonic Power Corp Press Release

The development funding will be repaid at each respective project’s financial close and does not impact Finavera’s equity position in the projects. GE Energy has co-developed thousands of megawatts of wind projects in North America and that expertise will be applied to this partnership in order to deliver high return projects on time and on budget.

“We are extremely excited to be working with GE Energy on the development of these wind projects,” said Finavera Renewables CEO Jason Bak. “This partnership combines Finavera’s exceptional wind projects with GE Energy’s outstanding technical experience to produce a team that will ensure the success of these projects. This deal significantly enhances our ability to move our projects to construction and grow our wind portfolio over the next several years.”

In March, Finavera was awarded 25 years electricity purchase agreements for four wind turbine projects totaling 301 megawatts of installed capacity. The JDA will provide Finavera with the funding necessary to continue to achieve project development milestones and to move the projects through to financial close.

The JDA replaces the Development Funding Agreement (“DFA”) announced by the Company January 21, 2010. The signing of the JDA also removes the DFA security provision against a minority interest in the Company’s Cloosh Valley wind project.

Read more: Press Release

The financing round was led by two highly-respected financial investors, Investor Growth Capital (the wholly-owned venture arm of Investor AB of Sweden) and VantagePoint Venture Partners and two leading global grid-related equipment companies, ABB and GE. The financing, which was coordinated by Deutsche Bank, also includes a significant credit facility from a major venture credit provider as well as continuing financial support from existing investors MissionPoint Capital Partners and zouk ventures. The new investment will be used to finance Trilliant’s continued growth in North America and globally.

“Our new investors represent some of the largest and most trusted companies in the utility industry,” according to Andy White, president and CEO of Trilliant. “Their combined industry experience, financial strength, and global footprint will provide us with the resources to expand our Smart Grid solutions across North America and to a global marketplace. The strength and caliber of our partners will give current and future customers confidence that they have chosen a long-term market leader.”

Trilliant provides utilities around the world with comprehensive, secure, standards-based, and real-time Smart Grid communication network solutions. Trilliant has over 200 utility customers, including Hydro One in Ontario, Canada. Hydro One has deployed Trilliant smart communications to over 1.1 million customers in support of the largest operating time-of-use billing program in the world. Trilliant’s multi-tier architecture, which connects utility distribution, metering, and consumer energy management devices, remains the industry’s only fully integrated end-to-end Smart Grid solution.

“Trilliant has demonstrated a proven track record of helping utilities successfully deploy large-scale Smart Grid solutions,” according to Dr. Albert Kim, managing director at Investor Growth Capital. “It is clear that Trilliant’s combination of product differentiation and project implementation expertise provides utilities with the most functional, expandable and cost-effective path to a Smart Grid communications network. IGC has been tracking the Smart Grid arena for many years and we have grown increasingly excited recently about the tremendous opportunities. We could not be more enthusiastic to be leading such an influential syndicate of institutional and strategic investors.”

“The global Smart Grid market represents a transformation of how utilities and consumers interact with energy supply and demand,” said Stephan Dolezalek, head of the CleanTech Practice at VantagePoint Venture Partners. “This transformation requires a combination of technological leadership, financial strength and significant corporate backing from global players. We believe that this financing and this team of participants clearly puts Trilliant at the forefront of this market and provides utilities with validated solutions and real-world expertise to realize the long-term benefits from a Smart Grid communications network.”

“Today’s utilities are looking for a unique combination of proven deployments, scalable, globally applicable solutions, and product leadership,” added Girish Nadkarni, Managing Director of ABB Technology Ventures. “We invest in companies that have technologies of strategic interest to us and as Trilliant addresses all three issues, it makes them a compelling choice. We look forward to lending our global expertise and presence to them.”

“GE and Trilliant are aligned around a common vision to modernize the power grid to support the energy needs of our 21st century society. Our companies have a shared commitment to bringing enhanced communications and information technology to our power grid. Through real-time knowledge and information sharing, a smarter grid will empower consumers to manage energy usage and costs, optimize the integration of cleaner energy sources, and drive increased energy efficiencies,” according to Luke Clemente, General Manager, Metering and Sensing for GE’s Digital Energy business. “Our investment in Trilliant strengthens our collaborative efforts to bring metering and consumer solutions to a wide variety of Smart Grid opportunities.””

Source: Trilliant Press Release

General Electric

According to the press release, ”

GE (NYSE: GE) announced today a $200 million open innovation challenge that seeks breakthrough ideas to create a smarter, cleaner, more efficient electric grid, and accelerate the adoption of more efficient grid technologies. GE Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt unveiled the challenge, the “GE ecomagination Challenge: Powering the Grid,” here today.

The global challenge invites technologists, entrepreneurs and start-ups to share their best ideas and come together to take on one of the world’s toughest challenges – building the next-generation power grid to meet the needs of the 21st century. The challenge is one of the largest ever and is open immediately at www.ecomagination.com/challenge.

“Innovation is the engine of the global effort to transform the way we create, connect and use power,” Immelt said. “At GE we have invested broadly and deeply in digital energy solutions and see this as a substantial market for us, but we can’t do it alone. We want to work with our partners to make sure we have a comprehensive digital energy offering. This challenge is about collaboration and we are inviting others to help accelerate progress in creating a cleaner, more efficient and economically viable grid. We want to jump-start new ideas and deploy them on a scale that will modernize the electrical grid around the world.”

The Challenge, launched in collaboration with leading venture capital firms Emerald Technology Ventures, Foundation Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byer and RockPort Capital, and Chris Anderson, Editor-in-Chief, Wired magazine, is part of GE’s ecomagination initiative, a global commitment to build innovative clean energy technologies and will help fund the most promising ideas. Proposals are sought in three, broad categories: Renewables, Grid and Eco Homes/Eco Buildings. Select Challenge entrants will be offered the opportunity to develop a commercial relationship with GE through:

• Investment: the $200 million capital pledge of GE and its partners will be invested globally into promising start-ups and ideas
• Validation: evaluate entrant’sbusiness strategy through in-depth discussions with GE’s technical and commercial teams
• Distribution: explore partnership opportunities with GE to scale a business and create global reach
• Development:: leverage GE‘s technical infrastructure and GE Global Research Centers to accelerate technology and product development
• Growth: explore opportunities for utilizing existing GE customer to take Challenge products to market

The $200 million commitment will help bring these new ideas to market by providing businesses and individuals with theopportunity to secure growth capital through GE investment and/or investment by participating venture capital firms. It is open to anyone aged 18 years or older and all legally formed entities.

GE CMO Beth Comstock said, “We took on a challenge when we launched ecomagination five years ago and we have learned about the power of partnerships to deliver clean energy solutions today. The challenge announced today is about collaboration and harnessing the promise of fledgling ideas and businesses to transform our energy future. We are confident in people’s willingness to change the way the world uses energy and in the ideas that will make this possible.”

“The Smart Grid is a new platform and a new market that is just beginning to be explored. Great ideas on how to do this can come from anywhere, so this competition is designed to tap the widest possible range of innovators, from big companies to entrepreneurs to students,” said Anderson, who is serving as an advisor on the Challenge.

Over the course of 10 weeks, entrants will be able to submit their ideas via ecomagination.com. Entries will be evaluated as candidates for both a potential future commercial relationship as well as a $100,000 innovation challenge award acknowledging their entry as an example of outstanding entrepreneurship and innovation.

The candidates for a future commercial relationship with GE will be evaluated by a committee of representatives of GE businesses and the challenge partner firms. A separate, independent judging panel including challenge advisor Chris Anderson, GE executives and leading academics and technologists will also provide input on the commercial relationship candidates, as well as select the five recipients of the $100,000 innovation challenge award. Members of the general public will also be able to review and comment on entries and show support for the idea that they believe will have the most impact on the smart grid of the future.

Modernizing the world’s aging electrical infrastructure is critical to meet ever-increasing demands on the power grid, support more renewable energy and increase energy efficiency. Full smart grid implementation could reduce U.S. carbon emissions through efficiency and enable further reductions through new source management, make the most of current assets, and support thousands of new jobs.

“Modernization of global electricity transmission and distribution systems have simply not kept pace with our society’s growing demand for clean and highly reliable power,” said Gina Domanig, Managing Partner of Emerald Technology Ventures. “Smart Grid innovation has been a significant area of investment focus for Emerald over the past decade and we are pleased to be a partner in the GE ecomagination Challenge.”

Foundation Capital General Partner Paul Koontz said, “Global power grids make up the largest networks in the world. In most cases, the technology on which they are based is essentially 100 years old. The opportunity to reinvent how energy is produced, distributed and consumed is extraordinarily large and is critical in the battle against climate change. We’re pleased to support GE’s initiative to engage the entrepreneurial community, and the powerful innovation engine it represents, in this effort.”

“Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers is committed to a sustainable energy environment and are working to reduce the world’s dependency on fossil fuel-based energy through our growing portfolio of innovative Greentech companies,” said Ray Lane, Managing Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. We believe the Smart Grid is the information technology backbone that will enable faster scaling of energy innovations. Kleiner Perkins is proud to be a part of the GE ecomagination Challenge, and we are committed to working closely with GE and other investor partners to help commercialize the best Smart Grid innovations.”

RockPort Capital General Partner Chuck McDermott said, “The electric power grid is the central nervous system of the global economy. Though today’s grid is a 20^th century engineering marvel, the smart grid of tomorrow promises to revolutionize how we manage our homes, offices and factories and to maximize the use of next-generation clean energy resources. Through this challenge, we will match the best ideas and best entrepreneurs with GE’s commitment to innovation, unparalleled technical knowledge and its deep penetration into the most vital areas of the world’s energy infrastructure. Working together we can transform yesterday’s grid into a 21^st century marvel.”

General Electric

According to the press release, “ITOCHU Corporation (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo; Masahiro Okafuji, President & CEO; hereinafter “ITOCHU”) and General Electric Company (headquartered in Fairfield, CT; Jeff Immelt, Chairman & CEO) entered into a collaboration and cooperation agreement to identify co-investment opportunities in renewable energy worldwide.

Under this agreement, General Electric’s GE Energy Financial Services unit, ITOCHU International Inc (III) and Tyr Energy Inc (Tyr), an independent power producer investment holding company of ITOCHU, are discussing co-investment opportunities in wind power, including the CPV Keenan II Wind Power Project (152MW, Oklahoma) and another wind project in the United States for which ITOCHU and its affiliates are conducting due diligence. Closing of ITOCHU’s investments in the Keenan II and other wind projects is expected in the third quarter of this year. For the Keenan II Wind Power Project, operations and maintenance will be contracted to NAES Corporation, a subsidiary wholly owned by III and ITOCHU, the industry’s largest independent, third-party provider of power plant operations and maintenance services.

• ITOCHU and GE have already developed a history of successful collaboration in power generation in the United States:
• Tyr and GE Energy Financial Services jointly own the Fox Energy Center in Kaukauna, W
• GE Energy Financial Services led the arrangement of non-recourse debt for Tyr’s wholly owned Commonwealth Chesapeake Company, LLC project in New Church, VA

• Tyr and GE Energy Financial Services were co-owners of the Green Country Energy project in Jenks, OK

Both companies consider it beneficial to enhance their relationship as potential investment partners focusing on renewable energy where the required amount of capital is significant. Under the memorandum of understanding, co-investment opportunities that ITOCHU and GE identify will undergo customary internal and due diligence reviews.

Wind comprises nearly 80 percent of GE Energy Financial Services’ renewable energy portfolio. The portfolio includes equity investments in 47 wind farms with a total capacity to produce 6 Gigawatts of electricity, as well as loans to 36 wind farms totaling 1.3 Gigawatts. GE Energy Financial Services’ renewable energy investments reinforce GE’s ecomagination initiative, a program to help its customers meet their environmental challenges while expanding its own portfolio of cleaner energy products. GE Energy Financial Services’ renewable energy investments have helped 20 states meet their renewable portfolio standards, regulations requiring increased electricity generation from renewable sources. GE Energy Financial Services holds a renewable energy investment portfolio of more than US $4 billion, with a target to reach US $6 billion this year by working with a wide variety of developer and investment partners. The investments span wind, solar, biomass, hydroelectric and geothermal power generation projects.

ITOCHU is forging ahead with the development of new businesses in the Life & Healthcare area, which comprises medical and health-related businesses; the Infrastructure area, focusing on functional infrastructure and social infrastructure; the New Technologies & Materials area, mainly biotechnology, new materials, and clean technologies; and the Environment & New Energy area. Taking the initial letter of each business area and synergy, ITOCHU refers to these business areas as L-I-N-E-s. Along with the strategy, ITOCHU is set to aggressively pursue the opportunities of investment in the infrastructure area, including power generating assets utilizing renewable energy.”

Source: GE Press Release

General Electric

According to the Press Release, “In the race to build a smart-charging infrastructure that fuels the coming plug-in car revolution, GE and Nissan have teamed to research new technology developments that will make smart charging a reality. The two companies signed a three-year Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to explore new technologies that are needed to build a reliable, dynamic smart-charging infrastructure.

The MOU brings together two companies with expertise in the most critical elements needed to make smart charging work. GE is a world leader in the energy sector, with a customer base that cuts across the entire electric grid network. Nissan is one of the world’s top automakers and a leader in electric vehicles. The all-electric, zero-emission Nissan LEAF is scheduled to launch later this year in Japan, the United States and Europe.

“In the past few years, we have seen an acceleration of innovations in plug-in hybrid and electric cars that have sparked a revolution in smart-charging technologies,” said Mark Little, senior vice president and director, GE Global Research. “Together with Nissan, we will take a comprehensive look at what technologies will be needed in the car, on the grid and at home or work to make smart charging a reality.”

“Nissan’s vision is to realize zero-emission mobility through a holistic approach by collaborating with various partners in a broad range of industries,” said Shunichi Toyomasu, corporate vice president, Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. “Working with GE, we expect this joint research project will provide insight for the home/building and electric grid connections which supports electric vehicle.”

GE and Nissan have outlined two key areas for potential collaborations. The first relates to the integration of electric vehicles with homes and buildings. The second focuses on electric vehicle charging dynamics with the larger electric grid. In coming months, GE and Nissan will work to identify specific projects they can partner on in each of these areas.

Much of the GE work will be conducted at GE’s global research operations located in Niskayuna, New York, where the latest electric transportation research and smart grid technology will facilitate the collaboration. Nissan will participate mainly through it Nissan Technical Center North America, located in Farmington Hills, Michigan, with support by the Nissan Advanced Technology Center in Japan.”

Source: General Electric Press Release

General Electric

According to Reuters, “Pricing systems that encourage households to use energy more efficiently are the best way to help consumers to protect the environment, a senior General Electric Co executive said on Tuesday.

Bob Gilligan, GE’s vice president of transmission and distribution, said the development of appliances that adjust their own energy use in response to signals from utility companies would be a key step in achieving this.

“As consumers … we speak from our heart, we express concern about the environment but we respond from our wallet,” he told a conference on the future of cities at Chatham House, the London think-tank.

“If we really want to drive consumer behavior we have to have pricing mechanisms that encourage us to change.”

Gilligan said investment in a smarter energy infrastructure was important in ensuring a more sustainable future.

Last year the British government said smart meters, which provide real-time information to consumers about energy use, would be installed in all British homes by 2020.

Smart meters are seen as the first step toward creating “smart grids,” where consumers can adjust electricity use to benefit from cheaper energy at times of low demand and reduce consumption at peak times.

GE are working to develop household appliances which would go one step further and adjust their own usage, Gilligan said.

Refrigerators, for example, could reduce their energy use by about 25 percent during times of peak demand though changes such as adjusting the timing of their automatic defrost.

“We are developing devices for the home that will take a pricing signal, that will go into an eco mode and help the consumer save money when electric costs are at the peak.”

The right regulatory framework would also need to be established to encourage utility companies to want to reduce demand, he added, decoupling the incentive to deliver more from the incentive to be efficient.”

Source: Reuters

According to Press Release, “As further evidence of their commitment to renewable energies, GE (NYSE: GE) and Brazil’s federal energy company, Petrobras, today celebrated the world’s first use of sugarcane-based ethanol in a gas turbine system to produce electricity on a full commercial scale. The operation, at the Juiz de Fora Power Plant, is a significant milestone for Brazil.

Ethanol derived from sugarcane in Brazil is one of the most efficient biofuels in terms of energy balance and carbon emissions. The benefits of this alternative fuel are substantial: it is a renewable energy source and its combustion reduces atmospheric emissions, especially NOX.

The Juiz de Fora Power Plant is a simple-cycle, natural gas plant with a total capacity of 87 megawatts, located in the south of Minas Gerais state, approximately 180 kilometers (110 miles) north of Rio de Janeiro. The plant has two GE LM6000 gas turbines, one of whose combustors has been modified by GE to enable the use of ethanol, making it dual-fuel (ethanol and natural gas). This enhances the plant’s energy security and reliability by providing a valuable alternative fuel source for the power plant that previously had only one available fuel.

As the world’s second largest producer of ethanol and the world’s largest exporter, Brazil will benefit from incorporating ethanol into its thermal generation profile because of the abundant fuel supply. The country’s 35-year, large-scale experience in ethanol use is based on efficient agricultural technology for sugarcane cultivation, producing 26.9 billion liters (or about 7.3 billion U.S. gallons) in 2008, according to data provided by the Federal Government.

Flexibility is a key characteristic of GE’s aeroderivative product portfolio. From supporting a wide variety of operating profiles to fast, easy, modular maintenance programs, GE’s aeroderivative gas turbines support the operating needs of its global customers. To better support a rising need for reduced environmental impact and improved plant economics, GE’s aeroderivative team is focused on developing alternative fuel solutions that will further augment the portfolio’s existing performance flexibility.

“GE’s continued investment in research and development of aircraft engines and industrial gas turbines enables the LM aeroderivative gas turbines to lead in technology, performance and operational flexibility while providing value to the customer,” said Darryl L. Wilson, president and CEO—Aeroderivative Gas Turbines for GE Power & Water. “The LM series has the ability to operate with a variety of fuels and features advanced emission control technologies.”

There will be five months of demonstration runs to validate the use of ethanol as an alternative fuel, as well as to ensure that emissions are within the expected limits. GE is providing the conversion technology, engineering and field support during conversion and commissioning.

“This kind of collaboration demonstrates the exciting developments that can be achieved to provide economic, environmental and local solutions for our customers,” said Wilson. “We want to be a leader when it comes to providing more efficient and reliable power from a variety of fuel sources for our customers and we’ll continue to pursue these types of collaborative opportunities to develop those solutions.””

Source: Press Release

According to the Press Release, “SolarEdge, whose technology increases solar power systems’ output by up to 25 percent, announced today that GE, unit GE Energy Financial Services has joined a US$23 million funding round to support growth in residential and large-scale photovoltaic sites. SolarEdge’s other investors are US venture capital leaders Opus Capital and Walden International, the Israeli funds Genesis Partners and Vertex Venture Capital, and the Singaporean fund JP Capital Asia.

The funding—GE Energy Financial Services’ first investment in Israel—was announced at GE Global Research, GE’s research and technology development center in Niskayuna, New York, during a media forum on clean tech venture capital investing.

“We will use this financing to further promote our solar power harvesting system, which can be embedded in practically all types of solar photovoltaic panels to maximize power generation while dramatically reducing costs,” said Guy Sella, Chairman, CEO and Co-Founder of SolarEdge.  “By partnering with GE, we benefit from the company’s proven R&D capabilities, energy technology expertise and deep commercial market reach.”

SolarEdge provides holistic photovoltaic power harvesting and monitoring technology to maximize the energy output and cost efficiency of solar PV units. The company works with industry-leading partners such as BP Solar and Schott Solar, Isofoton, HaWi Energitechnik, Gehrlicher solar and many others to embed its technology into photovoltaic panels to increase their power output by up to 25 percent and provide superior monitoring and control, without increasing costs. GE Global Research provided a technical, hands-on perspective to GE Energy Financial Services as it considered this investment.

“Our investment in SolarEdge reflects our confidence in the company’s ability to thrive in the growing global solar industry,” Alex Urquhart, President and CEO of GE Energy Financial Services, said at the GE venture capital media forum. “SolarEdge is a smart company, with smart technology that fits well with GE’ ecomagination program to help customers meet their environmental challenges. We view this investment as the beginning of a broader collaboration between GE and SolarEdge that could include joint product development and distribution.”

Details of each investor’s contribution to the equity financing were not disclosed.

Source: Press Release