Electrical power

Electrical power generation

GE Aerospace’s power generation systems have proven performance and reliability in the harshest of environments, with more than 10,000 units delivered around the world.

GE’s power generation systems span a wide range of 115VAC, 230VAC and 270VDC applications including Variable Frequency Generators, Variable Speed Constant Frequency Generators and Starter Generators. We offer integrated systems which mate the control and power electronics with the turbo machine or split systems with a separate Converter / Generator Control Unit.

GE provides both air and oil cooled systems spanning the entire spectrum of main, APU, back up and emergency aircraft generators. Several of our oil cooled generators use GE’s patented dry cavity cooling approach which substantially improves system efficiency and reliability while allowing the option of combining the cooling loops of the engine, gearbox and generator into a single shared oil system.

GE power generation systems lead the industry with respect to inlet cooling temperatures, power density and efficiency. Leveraging key technologies such as silicon carbide, multi-channel extraction and additive manufacturing improves performance and lowers costs. 

Electrical power distribution

GE Aerospace is an established provider of aircraft power distribution systems supporting customers including Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Gulfstream and Dassault while providing primary and secondary systems to aircraft like the F-35, B777, Apache AH-64, G500/600 and the Falcon 10X. GE Aerospace manages aircraft electrical power at 28V, 115V and 270V with solid state and mechanical switching technologies.

Working with customers, GE Aerospace not only designs, tests and supports the electrical system components that comprise the primary and secondary systems, it also supplies services and support that create:

• Military mission flexibility: Allowing new capabilities to be added to an aircraft platform without complex changes to the electrical power system
• Contemporary passenger cabin environments installing look and feel updates and seating configuration changes all within the designed electrical power system’s capabilities
• Simplification of utility application control: Creating needed interlocks and logic functions to ensure safe aircraft systems operation, eliminating dedicated controller units
• Risk reduction within aircraft development cycles: System flexibility to accommodate other systems changes, even during flight test
• Constructor self-configuration management of aircraft via GE's own proprietary tools.

Within the sphere of power system controls, GE also offers energy storage and management solutions, providing the 270VDC and 28VDC to Lockheed Martin for the F-35 aircraft

Electrical power conversion

GE Aerospace's best in class Silicon Carbide solid state power switches, combined with its high-power electrical systems design skills, allows it to create a range of invertor, convertor and power electronics solutions for vehicles across the land, sea and air domains. Its solutions offer compact, temperature tolerant, reliable switching where high voltage and high energy is to be managed in compact vehicle spaces and environments.

The use of high voltage and energy levels on vehicles is a key to driving performance efficiencies and deliver solutions to problems like sustainability and conditioning power for high energy military mission systems.

GE’s advancements in SiC and high-power system designs have caught the attention of the US Army. GE has been working with the U.S. Army's CCDC Ground Vehicle Systems Center (GVSC), formally known as TARDEC, to develop high voltage architectures for ground combat vehicles high-power demands that can meet future requirements in the world’s most challenging environments. Our systems have been extensively tested in the lab and field tested to show that they will meet the challenge. All of this has been possible due to GE’s SiC and design capabilities and through the partnership and funding from GVSC.

Read additional information about GE’s partnership with GVSC

Electrical power control

GE’s Silicon Carbide (SiC) high efficiency Integrated Starter/Generator Controller (ISGC) is specifically designed for the Next-Generation Combat Vehicle (NHCV). The design utilizes the latest generation of GE’s SiC MOSFETs providing unmatched power levels and durability for the harshest environments.

GE's solutions are also key to enabling the next generation of naval defences and directed energy weapon systems. With our colleagues in GE Power (Marine) our SiC convertors are helping power the USS energy magazines.