Every Second Counts

Why Seconds Matter When Powering the Rio 2016 Olympic Games

ATLANTA, GA--(Marketwired - Jul 22, 2016) -  The athletes competing in next month's Rio 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil count their wins and losses, Olympic Game Gold, Silver or Bronze, by hard-won metrics measured in seconds or even milliseconds¹.

These fractions of time are also crucial to GE's (NYSE: GE) work at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. To light and power every Olympic-Games moment, GE is deploying a host of systems across the Rio 2016 Olympic Games -- from critical power distribution and protection to the LED lighting for sports venues and the electricity generation that brings power to more than a third of Brazil.

"For all of our customers, uptime matters," said Russell Stokes, president and CEO, GE Energy Connections. "This couldn't be more true than during the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. We will monitor our performance every second to help ensure reliable power distribution."

Power to Measure Every Second of the Games
At every event of the Olympic Games, sensors, cameras, lasers and digital clocks that measure time in thousandths of a second², do more than just record winning times; these systems create a history of Olympic Games performances. Helping to ensure the quality and reliability of the power for these timing systems, lighting and other operations at more than 36 Olympic sports venues will be more than 3,000 single- and three-phase uninterruptible power supply (UPS) units and power distribution systems deployed by GE Energy Connections.

"Every Olympic Games venue, sporting event, race and match depends on the delivery of reliable and 'clean' power to timing systems," said GE's Alfredo Andrade de Mello, commercial leader, Olympics Global Growth & Operations. "Helping to ensure that not a second -- or even millisecond -- of the Olympic Games is lost is the job of our UPS units, which provide continuous and backup power to make sure venues, stadiums and arenas stay energized during the Rio 2016 Olympic Games."

A team of 35 GE power professionals will be on-site monitoring the performance of hundreds of these UPS systems 24/7, collecting tens of thousands of readings every hour as part of their on-site service and support.

Missing 15 Million Hours of the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympic Games
Imagine, for a moment, what a single second of lost Olympic Games broadcast coverage means -- when viewed through the lens of more than 900 million global television viewers³ tuning into the Opening Ceremonies of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. That lost second adds up to 15 million hours of blank TV screens around the world.