Gas turbine makers GE, Siemens, and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) in the last week of May separately profiled unprecedented results from development or testing of three innovative combined-cycle gas turbine (CCGT) technologies.

Since 1972, titanium-tubed power plant surface condensers have been providing corrosion-free service. Recent process advances are making the material suitable for even more applications.

In the last issue of MANAGING POWER we looked at some of the important points to keep in mind when writing an employee handbook to ensure that employees will actually will read it and adhere to its policies. This concluding article covers 10 of the most important policies that should be included.

Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel at the end of May officially endorsed a plan to shut down all 17 of the nation’s nuclear power plants by 2022. The decision, which gives the power-intensive nation just over a decade to find new sources of power for 23% of its energy needs, has had reverberations all over the world, though the future of nuclear—through growth in developing nations—continues to look sturdy.

In a surprising decision, a federal agency surrendered some of its regulatory authority—and parts of the industry don’t approve. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission declined to defend its jurisdiction over station power in the California power market, potentially giving an economic advantage to utility generators nationwide and putting merchant generators at a disadvantage.

Enterprise resource planning software has swept the power industry, promising to improve coordination and management. Has it lived up to the hype? One ERP vendor says the programs often underperform.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) in May discovered—after calibrating water gauges—that the water level in the reactor pressure vessel of Unit 1 at the quake- and tsunami-ravaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant may have dropped to such low levels that the fuel was completely uncovered. This caused almost all the fuel pellets to melt and fall to the bottom of the vessel at a relatively early stage in the accident—roughly 15 hours after the March 11 earthquake that killed an estimated 28,000.

If you needed additional proof that the power industry is changing, the ELECTRIC POWER keynote and panel discussions over the past few years have provided it—top-of-mind issues have been significantly different each year. For the 2011 keynote speaker and panelists, the challenges of reliability, regulatory compliance, financing, and getting the fuel mix right took center stage. In the wake of Japan’s nuclear crisis, safety also featured prominently.

Central banks in the past 18 months have injected a flood of money into financial markets. This liquidity in the system has allowed many marginal companies to issue bonds and avoid looming bankruptcy. Now is the time to take steps to protect yourself from the effects of a failed business relationship.

As the Daiichi nuclear crisis has governments around the world reconsidering their nuclear-heavy energy plans and scrutinizing the safety of existing reactors and third-generation designs, several developers are touting the merits of small modular reactors (SMRs).

Risk, risk management, and the specter of Fukushima ran through the nuclear track at May’s ELECTRIC POWER Conference in Chicago. The reality of risk, driven home by the horrendous events in Japan, was a recurring theme in many presentations, in questions to speakers, and in the conversations among delegates during informal moments.

Many leaders believe that an open door policy will improve employee communications and group productivity. On the other hand, there are five reasons why a closed-door policy may have more benefits to your organization.

In a an analysis released this May, nonprofit UK group Carbon Trust admits that there is “still considerable uncertainty as to whether wave and tidal systems will play a meaningful role in meeting global energy needs,” but it suggests, based on high and low scenarios, that up to 240 GW of marine capacity could be deployed globally by 2050. Roughly 75% of this capacity will come from wave and the remainder from tidal energy.

In today’s solid-fueled power plant, managing emissions and moving materials more defines the task than the traditional work of making megawatts. That’s the message that emerged from the coal and solid fuels track at this year’s ELECTRIC POWER.

Flooding that threatens two Midwest nuclear power plants and fire that reached the edge of the top U.S. nuclear weapons laboratory put U.S. nuclear safety in the news this week. Government officials responded with assurances that all facilities had adequately safeguards in place to ride out natural disasters.

Progress Energy Florida provided an update to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the Florida Public Service Commission (FPSC) on Monday regarding the status of its Crystal River Nuclear Plant. Based on an initial review, the company believes that repairing the unit is the best option, and it is taking steps to complete more detailed engineering and construction analyses. The company estimates that the unit will return to service in 2014.

On Monday, federal regulators renewed the operating licenses for Xcel Energy Inc.’s Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant, Units 1 and 2, which will allow the plant to run for 20 more years. Four days earlier, Xcel shut down its other nuclear plant in Minnesota to repair a valve.

Dominion Virginia Power on Monday asked the Virginia State Corporation Commission for approval to convert three Virginia coal-burning power plants to biomass, saying the proposal had "strong customer benefits" and fit well with the company’s commitment to produce 15% of its power from renewable sources by 2025.

A U.S. District Court jury on Tuesday acquitted Xcel Energy and its subsidiary Public Service Co. of Colorado of criminal charges on five counts stemming from an October 2007 fire at the utility’s Cabin Creek hydropower plant near Georgetown, Colo., that killed five workers.

California’s First District Court of Appeal on Friday ruled that the state Air Resources Board (CARB) can proceed with implementation of a carbon cap-and-trade system. The ruling grants the state regulator a temporary stay on an order, pending the court’s decision, to halt work on the program that was issued by a San Francisco Superior Court judge on May 20.

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced on Tuesday that six projects in four states (California, Colorado, Florida, and New York) have been selected to receive nearly $7.5 million over two years to advance next-generation designs for wind turbine drivetrains.

Last Thursday, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced that eight projects in five states (California, Connecticut, Louisiana, Texas, and Utah) have been selected to receive up to $11.3 million to support the research and development of pioneering geothermal technologies.

The Department of Energy (DOE) doled out several loan guarantee offers worth a combined $919 million in the past week. Recipients of the conditional commitments include Mesquite Solar 1 for the development of a 150-MW photovoltaic (PV) solar project in Arizona; Calisolar Inc. to help commercialize its silicon solar manufacturing process; 1366 Technologies to develop a multicrystalline wafer-manufacturing project, and Granite Reliable Power for a 99-MW wind project.

The U.S. installed 252 MW of grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) solar projects in the first four months of this year—66% more than the first quarter of 2010, the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) says in a newly released report. The industry group also says that cumulatively, grid-connected solar electric installations in the U.S. have reached more than 2.85 GW—2.3 GW of which is grid-connected PV.

U.S. Supreme Court justices on Monday unanimously decided that the Clean Air Act (CAA) and other efforts by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate greenhouse gas (GHGs)  “displace” any federal common-law right to “seek abatement of carbon dioxide emissions” from fossil fuel–fired power plants—including claims that GHG emissions constitute a “public nuisance.”

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) says in a new report that while all U.S. nuclear plant sites have had some groundwater contamination from radioactive leaks,  there was no discernable impact on the public’s health from radioactive leaks at three nuclear plants it investigated. It concludes, however, that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) could better identify and characterize the leaks if it required transparent monitoring data from licensees.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday said it would hear an appeal from PPL Montana of a March 2010 Montana Supreme Court decision that would have forced the power company to pay accrued rent and interest worth some $56 million to the state of Montana for the use of riverbeds beneath the company’s hydroelectric plants—some which have been generating power for more than a century.

The EPA on Tuesday extended by 30 days the timeline for public input on the proposed mercury and air toxics standards, though it stressed that the extension would not alter the timeline for issuing the final standards in November 2011. The public comment period for the so-called Toxic Air rule will now end on August 4, 2011.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers on the House Energy and Commerce Committee today introduced legislation that directs the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to develop “achievable standards” for industrial boilers and incinerators and grants more time for the development of and compliance with those rules.

San Antonio’s CPS Energy on Monday announced it would mothball by 2018—15 years earlier than planned—its 871-MW coal-fired J.T. Deely Power Plant—instead of spending an estimated $3 billion on pollution controls to comply with anticipated environmental regulations. The nation’s largest municipal utility expects to replace the plant’s generation through conservation and future renewable sources.