Boeing expanding to power-grid market?

Bloomberg News is reporting this morning that Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg is looking to enter the U.S. power-grid market because the company’s key defense programs are being canceled or facing budget cuts.

After a month in the job, Muilenburg, 45, said he’s accelerating plans to expand beyond aerospace and defense that were started by his predecessor, Jim Albaugh, who was named head of the commercial-jet division on Aug. 31.

“We know that we have to reposition our business, and that repositioning is something we are very aggressively doing,” Muilenburg said in an interview in his office overlooking the Pentagon. “One idea is to take some of our defense technology and use it to help solve problems in the energy sector.”

Bloomberg reports that energy projects would put Boeing in competition with General Electric, International Business Machines and Cisco Systems for $4.5 billion of U.S. stimulus spending aimed at improving the grid. The market for the grid’s communications segment may be worth $20 billion in the next few years, Boeing spokesman Chris Haddox said.

The extra business would be a boost to Chicago-based Boeing, which has faced losses in the Pentagon’s new spending plans. The company’s Future Combat Systems and Airborne Laser programs were canceled, as was a ground-based missile-defense site in Europe it would have built.

Meanwhile, Reuters in reporting that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has hope for Boeing to win a contract in Russia to supply planes for the state-run airlines.