RALEIGH – We have never seen change in the energy space like we’re seeing right now, and “from here, things will only pick up.” So said Greg Scheu, president, America’s Region, of ABB delivering the luncheon keynote at the North Carolina State Energy Conference in Raleigh on Wednesday.

ABB America’s President, Greg Scheu at the NC State Energy Conference.

Swiss-based ABB’s America’s HQ is in Cary and its R&D facility is a tenant of North Carolina State University’s Centennial campus. The company is a pioneer in electrification products, robotics, power grids and industrial automation. “Energy is 35 to 45 percent of what we do,” Scheu said.

“Who would have thought even five years ago that an airplane could go around the world without any carbon expenditure?” Scheu asked. ABB engineers were part of the Solar Impulse project. In 2015, Solar Impulse 2 completed the first round-the-world flight by a solar-powered airplane.

The plane has a wingspan wider than a Boeing 747 and has more than 17,000 solar cells on its wings. ABB participated to “prove what can be done with technology,” said Scheu.

[The Solar Impulse 2 soars over the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi ahead of its historic round-the-world flight in the photo with this post. (Copyright:Solar Impulse | Revillard | Rezo.ch).]

ABB also partnered with Formula E as a global sponsor of the fully electric motorsport series. The zero hydrocarbons high speed, high performance electric race car can “out-duel any gas powered car,” said Scheu. “With that kind of performance, it shows there is no reason why electric car won’t be more prolific, and they’re coming.”

Just this week, ABB disclosed that it has been selected by Electrify America to supply its Terra HP high power electric vehicle charging stations along multiple national highway corridors and in and around 17 metropolitan areas. The chargers can refresh even the largest electric vehicle (EV) batteries in under 15 minutes.

The ten-year project will help accelerate adoption of EVs, the company says. While almost 200,000 EVs were sold in the U.S. in 2017, the country’s charging infrastructure hasn’t kept pace. Electrify America plans to place chargers on its highway routes at intervals of no more than 120 miles, helping reduce the “range anxiety” of some prospective EV buyers.

“It’s a chicken and egg situation,” Scheu said. “It’s clear that the infrastructure has to move at the same speed as EV adoption.” ABB, he noted, “Is the largest supplier of DC fast-charging in the world.”

The Gen-2 Formula e car in Rome. ABB sponsors the FIA Formula E Championship races.

“Think about us as a local company,” Scheu said. “In NC, but also everywhere we go around the world, China, India, South America. We serve 100 countries with teams on the ground.”

More and more of the company’s business involves software and artificial intelligence these days, he said.

The company is buying GE’s Industrial Solutions division in a deal it hopes to close in the second quarter this year. The acquisition will add 14,000 GE employees to ABB.

The company currently has 20,000 employees in the U.S., up from 6,000 eight years ago. “We’ve tripled our operations in that time,” Scheu noted. ABB moved its America’s HQ to Cary a decade ago. It has 53 manufacturing and assembly facilities in the U.S., seven in NC (in Raleigh, Pinetops, King’s Mountain, Shelby, Marion, Weaverville, and Cary).

Big themes in energy

The “big themes” in the energy space, Scheu said, are the shift to renewable energy sources such as solar and wind, digitalization, energy storage, electric transport and grid innovation.

He sees a “real shift to solar.” NC is number 2 in the nation in solar installations. He added that NC also has the most offshore wind resources on the East Coast.

Grid innovation needed includes matching energy generation with demand. A lot of wind energy generation is happening in the middle of the country, where there is a lot of wind, but “A lot of the demand for the energy is not in the middle of the country,” he explained.

Digitalization enables consumers to see their energy costs and use and get information on power outages on their cell phones. In addition, Scheu said, “Utilities are trying to isolate outages to smaller and smaller areas.”

Digitalization also provides sensors “so we get real time feedback and get predictability on equipment condition without sending anyone out there. Data can be used to identify problems before they are critical.”

Grid transformation includes data on consumption points and new modes of production such as community solar or community wind. “Today the grid operates like the Internet. The data monitoring of what’s happening is important.”

Energy storage is also “going to be one of the big game changers,” he said. Energy storage allows you to balance the demand side of energy with the supply side, he explained.

He said the company plans to continue to grow, organically, with partners and through acquisitions, such as the GE division, which “has a large footprint in NC.”