GE Vernova to Participate at B20 South Africa as part of the Energy Mix & Just Transition Task Force
GE Vernova is participating at B20 South Africa as part of the Energy Mix & Just Transition Task Force to help advance practical solutions that scale up more affordable, reliable, sustainable, and secure energy, and the grid infrastructure to support it.
The company is also highlighting a regional integration breakthrough achieved by the West African Power Pool (WAPP), supported by GE Vernova. WAPP is a specialized agency of Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) in charge of promoting and developing power generation and transmission infrastructure, as well as coordinating power exchange among the ECOWAS member states.
WAPP conducted its full regional electric system synchronization, unifying grid operations across 15 West African countries, including Nigeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo, and Mauritania.
The electric system synchronization offers enhanced accessibility for countries to tap regional capacity to reduce outages and improve reliability, expand cross-border electricity trading, and better integrate renewables. Building on deployment of GE Vernova’s GridOS orchestration software at WAPP’s Information and Coordination Centre (ICC) in Abomey-Calavi, Benin, the centralized command center for the ECOWAS interconnected grid, GridOS tools support dispatch, stability, and energy-flow forecasting across the network, giving operators real-time visibility to monitor, analyze, and optimize power flows.
During the synchronization, GE Vernova's GridOS Wide Area Monitoring System (WAMS) tracked grid dynamics in near real time, while GE Vernova’s Consulting Services provided the technical foundation through Power System Stabilizer (PSS) tuning, governor field testing and settings updates, and coordination of the WAPP network synchronization. GE Vernova’s Grid Automation telecom solution provided the communications support linking the ICC to national dispatch centers across West Africa, enabling coordinated regional operations and accurate, real-time data transfer down to the substation level for synchronization decisions.
The trial confirmed multiple national transmission system operators to operate reliably under ICC coordination and allows an open regional electricity market to improve cross-border power exchange across West Africa. While the initial synchronization was a trial, a full permanent synchronization is scheduled for 2026.
At B20 South Africa, GE Vernova is also highlighting talent and skills useful for the transition. Globally, the GE Vernova Foundation is investing in technical and vocational pathways with a goal to reach 30,000 learners by 2030. In Johannesburg, the Next Engineers program has reached nearly 4,100 learners to date and awarded US$36,000 in scholarships to qualifying graduates.
GE Vernova awarded $83,000 in scholarships to 10 South African graduates through its External Bursary Program. The company has also provided comprehensive bursaries totaling $7.3 million to more than 900 beneficiaries nationwide, since 2020.
GE Vernova also organized the Mendoza Collective Action Summit, bringing together public, private, and academic leaders to expand access to electricity in underserved communities and establishing the Mendoza Principles to guide future collaboration.