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\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n \n \t\t\u00a9 Thomson Reuters 2012 All rights reserved<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" * To invest $170 mln, hire 450 people at Schenectady site * Steps up investment in plant from first planned $100 mln * Receives initial order from South African company By Scott Malone SCHENECTADY, N.Y., July 10 (Reuters) – General Electric Co plans to grow its nascent industrial-battery business to generate $1 billion in annual […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-12277","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12277\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}* To invest $170 mln, hire 450 people at Schenectady site\n * Steps up investment in plant from first planned $100 mln\n * Receives initial order from South African company\n\n\n By Scott Malone\n SCHENECTADY, N.Y., July 10 (Reuters) - General Electric Co\n plans to grow its nascent industrial-battery business to\ngenerate $1 billion in annual revenue by the end of the decade,\nthe head of the world's largest maker of electric turbines said.\n The largest U.S. conglomerate said on Tuesday it was\ninvesting $170 million in its first factory to make the\nbatteries, up from an initial $100 million targeted when it\ndecided to make the move in 2009. The larger investment will\ndouble the plant's planned capacity, GE said.\n That reflects Chief Executive Jeff Immelt's goals of turning\nindustrial batteries -- used in everything from hybrid railroad\nlocomotives to backups for industrial systems -- into a $500\nmillion annual revenue business by 2015 or 2016 and to reach the\n$1 billion revenue mark by the end of the decade.\n \"This is a massive market where that kind of scale is\nimportant,\" Immelt told reporters at the sprawling factory,\nbuilt in a complex that once made steam turbines. \"It also is a\nscale-based industry where you need to have your eyes set on\nmanufacturing size to get down the learning curve and be\ncost-competitive. You don't need a lot of customers to get a\nbillion dollars in revenue.\"\n The Schenectady, New York, site will employ about 450 people\nat full capacity. It was chosen in part because it is minutes\naway from the company's main corporate lab in Niskayuna, New\nYork, which developed the technology.\n \n ENERGY EXPANSION\n Immelt has stepped up GE's focus on energy over the past two\nyears, including an $11 billion wave of takeovers in late 2010\nand early 2011 funded by some of the proceeds of its sale of a\nmajority stake in the NBC Universal media operation.\n The company said it had received its first order for the\nbatteries from South African engineering company Megatron\nFederal, which wants 6,000 to be used as backup power supplies\nat telecommunications sites.\n \"This is definitely the future of telecos and most\ngrid-connected industries,\" said Brandon Harcus, divisional\nmanager at Megatron, who said the order was worth some $60\nmillion.\n GE received $15 million in funding from New York State\nauthorities and $5 million from local officials for the plant.\n GE's energy division, which also makes equipment used in oil\nand gas production, last year generated about 30 percent of the\ngroup's $147.3 billion in revenue and was also its most\nprofitable segment.\n GE's rivals in the energy sector include Germany's Siemens\nAG and France's Alstom SA.\n The new factory is not GE's only investment in battery\ntechnology. It also holds a stake in A123 Systems Inc,\na maker of lithium-ion batteries used in electric and hybrid\ncars. The company has seen its shares lose three-quarters of\ntheir value over the past year as it has begun to run short of\ncash. \n GE also this month paused its rollout of another\nenergy-related technology, temporarily halting construction on a\nsolar-panel plant it is building in Colorado. Immelt said that\nmove reflected a need to reassess how expensive it would be to\nbuild the panels, but said GE remained committed to the\ntechnology.\n \"We looked at where the industry is going and said, 'We've\ngot to be sure we are cost-competitive when we launch,'\" Immelt\nsaid. \"I think being in solar is a big part of GE's future, I\nthink we need to get there at the right cost point.\"<\/pre>\n