The Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator (MISO) on Thursday approved 215 new transmission infrastructure projects as part of the grid operator’s Transmission Expansion Plan 2011 (MTEP11). The projects include 17 transmission line projects that are estimated to cost as much as $5.2 billion to manage a “severe drop in planning reserve margins” that MISO has forecast could occur in the next years if pending environmental regulations proceed as planned.

An agreement reached between LS Power and environmental groups on Monday ends a decade-long legal battle, but it will force the company to ditch plans to build the 1,200-MW coal-fired Longleaf Energy Station near Blakey, Ga.; shelve plans for at least five years to build the 665-MW Plum Point II coal-fired plant near Osceola, Ark.; and limit pollution from the 900-MW pulverized Sandy Creek plant in Riesel, Texas.

Entergy Corp. last week agreed to divest and then merge its electric transmission business with the nation’s largest independent electric transmission company, ITC Holdings Corp. If the merger is completed, and ITC integrates Entergy’s 15,700 miles of interconnected transmission lines, that company could become one of the largest transmission companies in the U.S. with more than 30,000 miles of transmission lines from the Great Lakes to the Gulf Coast.

Toronto-based Bruce Power on Monday officially abandoned plans to build a new nuclear power plant in Alberta that has been under consideration by the company since 2007, saying it would instead focus investments on increasing reliability and safety at its existing Bruce Power nuclear generating station in Ontario.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) last week ruled that the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) discriminated against wind generators when it used its transmission market power to curtail wind power after high river flows and high wind last May and June caused generation on the BPA system to exceed power demand.

NRG Energy brought development of a key offshore wind project off the coast of Delaware to a screeching halt on Monday. Saying the development of a new domestic offshore industry was ridden with “monumental challenges,” the Princeton, N.J., company cited its inability to find an investment partner, a lack of federal loan guarantees, and the looming expiration of wind tax incentives as key reasons behind its decision.

A report released by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) last week finds that the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA’s) financial condition could hamper its ability to fund capital improvements—including a 20-year plan to meet power demand with more natural gas generation, three new nuclear reactors, and expanding energy efficiency programs.

Vattenfall last week scrapped a much-awaited €1.5 billion ($2 billion) carbon capture and storage (CCS) demonstration project it planned to build and begin operating by 2015 in the German federal state of Brandenburg, blaming “insufficient will in German federal politics.”

The UK’s Office of Nuclear Regulation (ONR) and Environment Agency today issued separate interim design approvals for AREVA and EDF’s EPR and Westinghouse’s AP1000 nuclear reactor designs, saying they are satisfied with how the designers of both reactors plan to resolve a number of remaining issues. The decision establishes that the reactors are acceptable for use in the UK, but reactor vendors must first clear remaining issues and take on board lessons learned from the Fukushima accident before being allowed to build new plants in the UK.

A former chairman of the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC) who was embroiled in an ethics scandal over helping a former agency counsel apply for a job at Duke Energy while participating in proceedings involving the utility’s costly Edwardsport integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) plant was indicted on Monday by a grand jury in Marion County.

By Dan Auld San Diego, December 4, 2011 — Will Rush Limbaugh save the solar industry? It looks that way for Toni Lynch in Allentown, Pennsylvania and Spiro Basho in Hicksville, New York. That’s a hoot, given Limbaugh’s well-known antipathy toward anything remotely resembling renewable energy. Limbaugh has repeatedly taken to the airwaves to slam […]

Rules proposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that could require operators of new and existing boilers burning coal, oil, natural gas, and biomass to install a “maximum achievable control technology (MACT)” and limit air pollutants were revised on Friday to offer more flexibility.

Days after the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) warned in a new assessment that new federal air quality rules could stress the nation’s power grid, the Department of Energy (DOE) released its own report examining the potential impact of two standards on electricity reliability. Those rules would prompt the closure of 29 GW of coal-fired capacity, but they should not create resource adequacy issues or unmanageable reliability challenges, the DOE finds.

A Texas District Court today dismissed two appeals challenging air quality permits granted by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) last December for the 600-MW coal-fired Tenaska Trailblazer Energy Center under development near Sweetwater in Nolan County.

CMS Energy Corp.’s Consumers Energy, which has the oldest fleet of coal plants in the nation, with an average age of 50 years, on Friday said it was immediately abandoning plans to build a $2 billion, 830-MW clean coal plant project near Bay City, Mich., and was planning to suspend operations at seven smaller coal-fired units in 2015.

Texas will be short 2,600 MW during the summer 2012 peak, and reserve margins will dip to 12% owing to decisions to mothball some generation units, several delays in planned generation, and a higher load forecast, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) said on Thursday.

A report unveiled on Monday by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on the future of the smart grid over the next two decades finds that the U.S. grid can stand up to the challenge of integrating electric vehicles as well as new sources of distributed and intermittent power generation—as long as certain policy changes are made.

Last week, as Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) announced he would propose a federal Clean Energy Standard (CES) bill early next year, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) released an impact analysis that examines how such a policy would affect the nation’s power profile and carbon emissions.

By Kennedy Maize Washington DC, December 6, 2011—The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has rolled out the latest, and fifth, of its Future Of series of studies of U.S. energy policy, this one focused on the interstate electric transmission grid. The massive transmission tome contains little that’s new to anyone who has followed this subject. Included […]

By Kennedy Maize Washington, D.C., December 2, 2011 — Think the tension between electric reliability and environmental protection is just theoretical hand-waving? Debra Raggio, assistant general counsel at GenOn Energy, the non-utility generator formerly known as Mirant, will tell you you’re wrong, and she can back it up. Raggio told her tale of regulatory Catch-22 […]

Ditching the only project remaining in its £1 billion ($1.60 billion) carbon capture and storage (CCS) competition, the UK government declined to back the much-watched CCS project at the Longannet power station in Fife, Scotland, in October. The decision balances the UK’s low-carbon ambition with the need to ensure that taxpayer money is invested in “the most effective way,” the nation’s Department of Energy and Climate Change said. The funds are now expected be used to “pursue other projects” in both Scotland and England.

South Africa is at a critical turning point. An uncertain environment for private investment, escalating electricity prices, and a lack of available power threaten South Africa’s position as an attractive investment destination for many of the country’s most important industries. Power has been placed at the forefront of the government’s agenda, but South Africa needs a collaborative effort to meet the country’s energy demands and diversify its generation portfolio in order to drive economic growth.

Pulverizers prepare raw fuel for burning by grinding it to a desired fineness and mixing it with the just the right amount of air before sending the mixture to boiler burners for combustion. Part I of this three-part report examined the essentials of pulverizer design and performance; Part II discussed the importance of fuel fineness. This final article discusses the importance of air and fuel measurement.

China’s efforts to build the Myitsone Dam—a $3.6 billion hydropower project planned at the confluence of the Mali and N’Mai Rivers at the source of the Irrawaddy River in Burma’s Kachin State—were thwarted in late September after Burma’s President Thein Sein suspended construction “to respect the will of the people.”

The need for flexible power generation has increased drastically over the past few years, particularly when integrating renewables. Another driver is seasonal peaks in demand that have become more severe as global drought conditions have reduced hydropower production. One option for addressing this need is the Siemens Energy SGT6-5000F with Shaping Power. It offers the familiar gas turbine reoptimized for increased output and higher efficiency during hot weather and for improved operating flexibility at part-load conditions.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is expected to release new air quality standards for coal-fired power plants this month. Division in the power industry is encouraging the EPA to set an unachievable compliance timetable.

Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s (TEPCO’s) Fukushima Daiichi 1 reactor—a unit that suffered a core melt and hydrogen gas explosion after the March 11 earthquake in Japan and subsequent tsunami devastated the six-reactor facility—was fully encased in an “airtight” cover in October.

The newest member of the 60% thermal efficiency combined cycle club is GE Energy’s FlexEfficiency 50. In an era when flexible grid operation is growing in importance, this 50 Hz, single-shaft combined cycle also holds its design point efficiency down to 87% load and features turndown to 40% of rated load.

When sootblower operation frequency is too high, a plant risks losing power generation from tube leaks; but when sootblower frequency is too low, there is a risk of boiler pluggage. Intelligent sootblowing finds the right balance between tube erosion and plant economic operation.

Since a 2008 University of Texas-Austin study showed that converting farm animal droppings into renewable power could generate enough power to meet up to 3% of North America’s consumption, interest in cow power has been piling up.