Committing to the Australian environmental challenge

ecomagination puts into practice GE's belief that financial and environmental performance can work together.

In fact, GE's environmental technologies and programs are helping solve some of the world's toughest challenges. From our carbon management fleet program to energy technologies such as wind, solar and gas turbines GE ecomagination is helping make the world a better place.

In Australia and New Zealand, we have over $1.9billion in orders for ecomagination certified products and services as customers take action to reduce their environmental impact.

Recent customer projects include:

SP Ausnet

One of Australia's largest utilities, SP AusNet will be the first in the world to implement GE's WiMAX fourth-generation (4G) smart grid solution. GE's smart grid solution will help SP AusNet deliver energy security and reliability to nearly 700,000 Australian households, and will help prepare for the future of smart grid innovation – from plug-in cars to rooftops solar energy.

Verve Energy

Western Australia's largest energy producer will become the first Australian company to use GE Energy's innovative LMS100® high efficiency simple gas turbines, which will help ensure continuity of power supply to its wind farm customers and reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by up to 45,000 metric tonnes compared with typical gas turbines: the equivalent of taking 8,500 cars off the roads each year.

The Verve Energy project follows the deployment of two GE LMS100® high efficiency simple gas turbines for Contact Energy, Wellington, NZ for its Stratford Peaker Project.

Gorgon / Chevron

GE Oil & Gas was selected to deploy advanced liquefied natural gas (LNG) technology for the development of Gorgon, one of the world's largest untapped natural gas fields, which also features the world's largest ever carbon-dioxide (CO2) sequestration technology project.

GE will supply Chevron with equipment to fulfill Gorgon's LNG production and CO2 sequestration:

Three Main Refrigerant Compression Trains required for Gorgon's production of 15 million tonnes per annum LNG – equating to three shipments a week leaving Gorgon's purpose built LNG loading jetty; and,
Six Compression Trains required to drive Gorgon's pioneering carbon dioxide sequestration (C02) project, the world's largest - injecting up to four times more carbon dioxide than any other project worldwide.

Rio Tinto / Pacific National / UGL

GE Transportation and UGL signed a series of agreements for the sales and distribution of locomotives and associated technology and services in Australia. The Evolution Series Locomotive is the most technologically advanced heavy haul locomotive in the world, making it an ideal product for hauling iron ore and other bulk commodities throughout Australia. It is 5% more fuel-efficient and generates 40% lower emissions than previous locomotives.

GE Transportation has delivered 56 locomotives to Australian companies including Rio Tinto and Pacific National since the start of 2008. Approximately 500 locomotives from GE Transportation and UGL are currently in use throughout the country.

Clarke Energy / AngloCoal

Anglo Coal demonstrated the mining industry's efforts to reduce the environmental impact of its activities by creating one of Australia's most powerful onsite power plants fueled by waste coal mine gas (WCMG) and powered by GE's ecomagination certified 3-megawatt (MW) J620 Jenbacher gas engines.

The 45.6-megawatt (MW) alternative energy plant, located at Anglo Coal's Moranbah North mine in the state of Queensland, allows the operator to capture the mine‘s methane-rich gas and use it as a fuel to generate electricity instead of venting the gas into the atmosphere.

ecomagination at work

The environmental challenge extends to every one of us, and part of our commitment is to reduce our impact on the environment through our operations. Globally, GE committed to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 1% by 2012 from a 2004 baseline. Given our growth since then, this means reducing emissions as we grow and we are proud to have reported a 13% reduction from the baseline in 2009, well ahead of our target. We continue to drive improvements in water recycling, energy management, paper usage and recycling across all of our sites.

In Australia and New Zealand, we have improved our impact on the environment via corporate initiatives as well as employee-driven programs. We encourage our employees to initiate and lead efforts to drive change, which include:-

Introduction of secure print, which saw a 20% reduction in paper usage
Improved water efficiency including 40% water savings in our Buranda, Queensland site and 25% water saving in our Burnley, Victoria site through water efficiency devices and recycling
Rooftop consolidation to drive efficiency in operations, moving from 165 sites to 120 in 2009
Recycling facilities for paper, cardboard, cartridges and mobile phones are available across all sites saving 30 cubic meters of cardboard and paper waste each week
Efficient lighting introduced on timer and sensors to reduce waste.