GE and Google are teaming up to build a “smart” electricity grid and develop renewable energy and plug-in vehicle related technologies.

The initial priorities will include:

• Planning, siting and cost allocation for the transmission capacity necessary to enable large scale deployment of renewable electricity generation in the US

• Developing and deploying a “smart” electricity grid that will lower emissions; and collaboration on clean technologies such as utility scale geothermal renewable energy as well as software and services needed to enable utilities to integrate plug-in vehicles into the national grid.

The collaboration will work on an advanced approach to geothermal technology called Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS), which has the potential to provide large-scale renewable power all over the world. GE and Google specifically are expoloring EGS technologies such as reservoir visualisation and power conversion.

A Google blog post on the partnership says:

“Americans should have the choice to drive more fuel efficient cars – or even electric cars – and manage their home energy use to reduce costs, and buy power from cleaner sources, or even generate their own power for sale to the grid.”

More from the twosome themselves here.

Tags: clean technology, GE, geothermal, google