GE Vernova acquires data company

GE Vernova’s Digital business has acquired Greenbird Integration Technology AS, a data integration platform company focused on utilities.

The company said the platform will accelerate GridOS, what GE Vernova calls the world’s first software portfolio designed specifically for grid orchestration, adding new capabilities for connecting systems and integrating data across the grid more easily and at scale. The financial terms of the acquisition are not being disclosed.

“Utilities have an urgent need to connect data from multiple sources to gain visibility and effectively automate their grid operations,” said Scott Reese, CEO of GE Vernova’s Digital business. “Fragmented data is a major obstacle to modernizing the grid and is holding the energy transition back.

“The Greenbird acquisition brings the proven ability to connect multiple data sources and accelerates our vision for GridOS that is making energy security a reality for many of the world’s leading utilities. Data and AI are key to helping utilities run a reliable and resilient grid and this acquisition is a massive accelerant to making that vision a reality for utilities of all sizes.”

The GridOS orchestration software platform and application suite is designed to allow secure and reliable grid operations while delivering resiliency and flexibility needed by utilities worldwide. GridOS delivers these tools with the cloud service provider and system integrator partner ecosystem necessary to accelerate grid modernization and the energy transition. The software portfolio uses a federated data fabric to pull together energy data, network modeling, and AI-driven analytics from across the grid. The Greenbird acquisition will expand the capabilities of the data fabric, eliminating data silos to make it faster and easier to connect and aggregate energy data, reducing the time and expense of data integration projects, the company said. This also better connects modern software like Advanced Energy Management System (AEMS), Advanced Distribution Management Solutions (ADMS), and Distributed Energy Resource Management System (DERMS), creating new opportunities for grid automation.

“Having access to utility data in context gives grid operators an opportunity to better leverage AI for automation and potentially enables the grid to be self-describing and self-healing in the future,” said Mahesh Sudhakaran, General Manager, Grid Software at GE Vernova’s Digital business. “This is the vision we have for grid orchestration enabled by the GridOS portfolio, and this acquisition provides both the technology and the talent to help us get there.”

An example of the need for more connected and integrated data is evident in the exponential growth predicted for electric vehicles (EVs) – there are expected to be 77M EVs on the road by 2025 and 229M by 2030 – that will both draw from and possibly contribute to the grid as “rolling batteries” that can be tapped when demand is high and supply is low. Integration of data from multiple sources like charging stations as well as operations, forecasting, billing, and other systems can support the success of future use cases such as vehicle-to-grid (V2G) while keeping the grid safe.

Data integration is also key to solving renewables connection challenges. Approximately 1,350 GW of additional, mostly sustainable power capacity is waiting to be constructed and connected to the grid. This large-scale interconnection backlog results in wasted capacity and unutilized investment. Scenario planning and grid simulations can provide an opportunity to increase line capacity and drive deeper visibility into the impact of such assets on the grid, allowing capacity to be connected faster and helping to reduce hundreds of millions of dollars of traditional back-up generators. Such use cases require the integration of forecasting, simulation, historical grid OT, sensor, line, and inertia data.

The Greenbird integration platform is delivered as a service (iPaaS) and is built with containerization and a suite of cloud services, which will accelerate the availability of key GridOS components. In addition, GE Vernova welcomes Greenbird’s innovative team to the Grid Software group, including data specialists skilled in developing and deploying distributed data processes at scale for utilities. The acquisition will advance the AI- and data-driven vision for GridOS that GE Vernova’s Digital business believes will solve grid orchestration challenges while cultivating an energy data ecosystem that advances decarbonization and electrification at scale.