Google and GE team up on clean-energy policy, tech

General Electric and Google on Wednesday announced a collaboration to lobby for renewable energy policies and to jointly develop clean technologies.

During the Google Zeitgeist conference in Mountain View, Calif., Google CEO Eric Schmidt interviewed GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt onstage about the maturity of renewable energy technologies and current policies.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt

(Credit: Google)

Schmidt said that the two companies will push for government programs to modernize the electrical grid, which would enable broader use of renewable energy.

"GE and Google will be advocating in Washington for the new and smarter grid," Schmidt said.

Their policy partnership will call for beefed-up transmission capacity so renewable sources, such as wind, solar, and geothermal, can be further deployed.

Wind power is far ahead of other renewable energy sources in being reliable and cost-competitive with fossil fuel power plants, Immelt said. GE's wind business, one of the largest in the world, will bring in more than $7 billion this year.

However, wind farms are often placed away from the centers of high electricity use. To greatly expand wind energy, which now makes up less than 1 percent of U.S. power generation, more transmission lines are needed.

"If we really want to drive renewables to where it could be, we are going to need more transmission capacity, and the government is going to have to (intercede) to make that happen," Immelt said.

Right now, renewables other than hydroelectric power represent only a few percent of the overall electricity generation in the U.S. Immelt said that getting 20 percent from renewable sources by 2020 would be possible to achieve.

"Actually, this isn't hard. The technology exists. It doesn't have to be invented. It needs to be applied. It needs to be priced for carbon and things like that. This can happen," Immelt said.