General Electric Uses an Integrated Framework for Product Costing, Demand Forecasting, and Capacity Planning of New Photovoltaic Technology Products

Abstract

General Electric (GE) Energy's nascent solar business has revenues of over $100 million, expects those revenues to grow to over $1 billion in the next three years, and has plans to rapidly grow the business beyond this period. GE Global Research (GEGR), in partnership with GE Energy's solar platform team, is pursuing a number of technological alternatives to bring new low-cost solar products to the market. However, the GE solar business is facing a challenge—making optimal investment decisions to realize its growth objectives in the presence of major uncertainties in technology, costs, demands, and energy policy. We have developed analytical decision support tools with embedded mathematical models to estimate product costs and demands, and to support capacity planning decisions under cost and demand uncertainties. In this paper, we outline our algorithmic approach and system implementation, which help to support strategic decisions at GE.