Shocking Trip to Linden

When I tell someone I work for GE, quite frequently their response will be, “GE owns…like… everything!”

While that’s not entirely true, they the company does own/manage quite a lot. Sometimes it’s even too much for me to take in.

However, being part of a large company does have its benefits, and yesterday I got to experience that first hand.

Recently, I had the chance to visit and tour the GE Linden Cogeneration Plant. This plant is owned primarily by GE Capital’s Energy Financial Services and it provides power to the Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland (PJM) grid.

More often than not, the plant generates more energy than the PJM needs and so recently it has been outfitted with one of the first GE VFTs. VFTs allow the extra power that the plant makes to be passed to the New York grid (long story, but essentially grids have different frequencies).

While on the tour, we learned how the plant operations and were made aware of important safety procedures.  We also learned it is very efficient and it is nice to know that it is able to reuse and sell many of its byproducts.

The cool stuff came last. We were let into the control rooms and honestly it is just as it’s portrayed on TV. Lots of computer screens, lots of big huge computer cabinets, and lots of knobs and buttons.

Speaking of buttons … my favorite button: the big, round, red button with “easy” written on it. THAT’S RIGHT they had a Staples Easy Button! Wish I could have taken a picture and tweeted that.

If I worked there, that would be number one necessity as well.  After that we got to see the reverse-osmosis water purification system used to make their steam, a hydrogen generator, and I finally got up close and personal with a turbine/generator involved in a planned outage.

All in all in was a pretty good day off from work. Thanks GE!

Note: This is not an endorsement of Staples. I just think the button is cool.