General Electric's undisclosed, first-time investment in Israel-based SolarEdge Technologies was matched by two other investments in companies with which GE has quite a bit of experience.

Those would be Tendril, the maker of home energy management technology, and Grid Net, the GE-backed maker of software and systems for WiMax-enabled smart meters. GE's investment arm, GE Energy Financial Services, announced the investments Wednesday.

While GE hadn't invested in Tendril before, it and the Boulder, Colo.-based startup have a partnership to use Tendril's software platform to enable GE's planned line of "smart" home appliances that can turn on and off via homeowner or utility commands to cut down on peak power demand.

As for San Francisco-based Grid Net, GE participated in a 2006 funding round that got the company going, and has reportedly been testing Grid Net's WiMax technology in GE smart meters in pilot projects in Australia.  

GE Energy Financial Services investment arm didn't disclose the amount of its investments in the three companies.