Business Briefs for the Week of May 18, 2009

GE recently announced that it will open a new, state-of-the-art battery manufacturing plant in Upstate New York that will serve as the main manufacturing facility for GE’s newly formed battery business. The initial investment in the factory will be $100 million.

NEC Electronics Corp., Santa Clara, Calif., has joined the HomePlug Powerline Alliance, Portland, Ore., an industry organization comprising leading technology, hardware, software, services, and retail providers established to help standardize powerline communications (PLC) technologies for the home area network (HAN). As a sponsor member of this industry-led initiative, NEC Electronics will help develop and establish HomePlug specifications to enable mainstream adoption of PLC technologies for use in smart-energy applications, which will provide networking and communications technologies that enable intelligent energy consumption management.

PowerSecure, Wake Forest, N.C., has been awarded approximately $6 million of new business from several major grocery chains for its state-of-the-art green EfficientLights light-emitting diode (LED) lighting technology. The new technology is expected to reduce the stores' refrigerated case-lighting energy use by 70% and reduce the carbon footprint by approximately 80 thousand pounds of carbon emissions annually per store.