One of the Capital Region’s longest-running industrial giants is celebrating hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for clean energy. On Thursday, General Electric showed off how the influx will be felt at its Schenectady plant.
On a tour of GE Vernova’s building 273, Plant Leader Brian Carlson says the funding will support efforts to enhance sustainability, improve gas power manufacturing, and strengthen onshore wind manufacturing capabilities.
“We've bought equipment to expand the capacity for gas power. Very specific examples, we bought three more machines, like the one behind me, and then we've bought other equipment throughout the facility, which raise our capacity about 30 percent as we see this growth coming, and it's focused more on the gas power side,” Carlson. “So, this is an example of a tape machine, and we literally bought three more of these, which will be arriving in the next year and a half.”
GE announced $600 million in investments for its plants nationwide, creating roughly 1,500 jobs over the next two years.
The Schenectady plant will receive roughly $90 million and its research center in nearby Niskayuna will receive approximately $100 million. Combined, the nearly $200 million investment in the Capital Region will create 175 jobs.
At the research center, the funding is expected to strengthen electrification and decarbonization efforts, advance technologies like carbon dioxide removal, alternative fuels for power generation, and infrastructure security.
Aside from wind and gas, factory employees work on technologies like steam turbines and nuclear components that eventually get shipped, in parts, around the world.
Carlson says improvements are already in the works.
“Purchase orders are already placed. We're expediting material from suppliers,” Carlson said. “Some of it will begin showing up this year, and then out through 2026 as we continue to capacities the place. So, the money is spent, we just got to try to get it here as fast as we can.”
Tim Brown, a spokesperson for GE’s wind department, says the company is confident it will receive already promised federal funding despite President Trump’s aversion to clean energy policies.
In addition to a sudden freeze in federal funding, the White House has pledged to halt a Biden-era policy under which the Department of Energy spent billions of dollars per year on clean energy research, development and demonstration to speed up a transition away from fossil fuels.
“We work with administrations on both sides of the aisle,” Brown said. “We think there's clearly a focus on all of the above energy approach in the country. So, we're confident the equipment we make here is for gas, wind, nuclear. There's a lot of work for the good people here to do to make sure that we're meeting the country's energy security needs.”
Speaking ahead of the tour, Mayor Gary McCarthy, a Democrat, said Schenectady is a partner in making the region competitive.
“We look at GE as a partner, and that I've always wanted to do whatever we can do to make sure that this facility is globally competitive in it is sometimes a challenge, but I want to put that message out again today,” McCarthy said. “The talent that is in this building, the products that are coming out of this building are world changing, and everybody should pat themselves on the back for being part of that.”
GE has four locations in the Capital Region including Rotterdam and Saratoga with more than 1.7 million square feet of manufacturing space in Schenectady alone.