The Utah Taxpayers Association has urged cities and towns that have subscribed to the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) small modular reactor (SMR) project to withdraw from the venture before a Sept. 14 deadline that would lock them into a share of billions of dollars in costs associated with the undertaking. Rusty Cannon, vice […]

Coal power may be struggling in some parts of the world, but it’s doing just fine in China. New plants are coming online featuring state-of-the-art technology. Two ultrasupercritical units added at the

It sounds kind of strange, but you don’t always know, what you don’t know. That was the case at a Thai coal plant. When it started burning Indonesian subbituminous coal, operators didn’t know how dusty

Many of the electric transmission grids in service around the world were designed and built more than a half century ago. While changes and upgrades have obviously been made over the years, the systems were

Building a new nuclear power plant is challenging. Nuclear construction projects always seem to be behind schedule and over budget. Even in the late 1960s and early 1970s—arguably nuclear power’s

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on July 29 finalized several changes to the regulations for disposal of coal combustion residuals (CCRs), or coal ash, from electric utilities. The changes include giving utilities more time to design clean-up and closure plans for their coal ash storage sites. The changes stem from an opinion issued Aug. […]

The power generation industry has historically been a male-dominated industry, but today there are a number of women who have risen through the ranks to positions of leadership. Ana Amicarella, CEO of EthosEnergy, is one of them. EthosEnergy is a leading independent service provider of rotating equipment services and solutions to the power, oil and […]

POWER Magazine   Jobs   White Papers  Webinars   Events   Store   July 27, 2020 Rains Complicate Ethiopian Hydro Dam Dispute July 23, 2020: Ethiopia said it had reached a “major common understanding” with Egypt and Sudan related to the first filling and annual operation of the 6.4-GW Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), paving… […]

The DIII-D National Fusion Facility, operated by General Atomics for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), is the largest magnetic fusion research facility in the U.S. The mission of the DIII-D research program is to establish the scientific basis for the optimization of the tokamak approach to fusion energy production. The DIII-D program is a […]

Drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), have been dabbled with throughout the power industry for years. POWER featured a drone on its cover in April 2014, and has published many articles on drone technology since then. Yet, the technology has been used more as a novelty in the power sector up to this point. As […]

Duke Energy Progress, the Duke Energy subsidiary that serves about 1.6 million customers in the Carolinas, announced the completion of its new Asheville Combined Cycle Station in Arden, North Carolina. The company said the $817 million combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) facility (Figure 1) includes two power blocks with a total of four generators and […]

The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) is working feverishly to get a provision into the next COVID-19 stimulus package that would allow electric cooperatives to reprice loans from the Rural Utilities Service (RUS) at current low interest rates without penalties. The change could save co-ops more than $10 billion. The RUS, which is a […]

The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission approved Xcel Energy’s request to offer two of its coal units into the Midcontinent Independent System Operator market on a seasonal basis. That means the company can idle the two units for six months of the year, which is expected to save customers money while also reducing air emissions. “This […]

NuScale Power has completed its second submittal to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) for pre-licensing Vendor Design Review (VDR) of its small modular reactor (SMR). A pre-licensing VDR is an optional service provided by the CNSC when requested by a supplier. It provides a mechanism that enables CNSC staff to provide feedback early in […]

The renewable energy sector was on a steep growth curve entering 2020 with a lot of experts predicting a record year. Then COVID-19 disrupted the entire world, causing trouble in supply chains and putting millions of workers in unemployment lines. However, a new report released by the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE), a renewable […]

POWER Magazine   Jobs   White Papers  Webinars   Events   Store   July 15, 2020 Featured Siemens' Roadmap to 100% Hydrogen Gas Turbines Aligning with a target set by European industry association EUTurbines, Siemens Gas and Power in January 2019 rolled out an ambitious roadmap to ramp up the hydrogen capability in all its […]

POWER Magazine   Jobs   White Papers  Webinars   Events   Store   July 13, 2020 Featured Siemens' Roadmap to 100% Hydrogen Gas Turbines Aligning with a target set by European industry association EUTurbines, Siemens Gas and Power rolled out an ambitious roadmap to ramp up the hydrogen capability in all its gas turbine models […]

A distributed energy resource management system, or DERMS, is a software platform used to manage a group of distributed energy resource (DER) assets—such as rooftop photovoltaic solar panels, behind-the-meter batteries, or a fleet of electric vehicles—to deliver vital grid services and balance demand with supply to help utilities achieve mission-critical outcomes. As a guest on […]

POWER Magazine   Jobs   White Papers  Webinars   Events   Store   July 8, 2020 Featured $122 Million Earmarked for Coal 'Innovation Centers' Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette said the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is ready to make about $122 million available to establish what the DOE calls “innovation centers” for coal. Brouillette…   […]

An energy imbalance market (EIM) is a voluntary market that provides a sub-hourly economic dispatch of participating resources for balancing supply and demand every five minutes. One such market is the Western

Some experts have predicted there will be as many as 50 billion connected devices in service by the end of this year. That number basically includes all of the equipment, sensors, and gadgets around the world that together make up the internet of things (IoT). But how are they all connected, what allows them to […]

POWER Magazine   Jobs   White Papers  Webinars   Events   Store   June 29, 2020   Dear POWERnews subscriber, You may have noticed a new e-letter with the subject line “Best of POWER…” in your inbox a couple of weeks ago and again today. This new offering is our attempt to keep you abreast […]

Russian state atomic energy corporation Rosatom is working with Paris-based Framatome and GE Steam Power, which is headquartered in the U.S., to secure contracts to construct the Belene nuclear power plant in northern Bulgaria near the Danube River, which forms the country’s border with Romania. An On-Again Off-Again History The Belene project has a long […]

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) said it will provide loans and loan guarantees to rural electric cooperatives and utilities to build or improve infrastructure in 21 states. The funding was announced on June 22 and amounts to more than $1.6 billion, including nearly $386 million for investments in smart grid technology, which uses digital […]

The first GE 7F gas turbine began commercial operation 30 years ago this month. Since coming on the market, more than 950 7F machines have been commissioned, including four 7F.04 units that entered service recently at Techint’s Norte III combined cycle power plant in Mexico. The 907-MW Norte III facility is located in the municipality […]

POWER Magazine   Jobs   White Papers  Webinars   Events   Store   June 15, 2020 Featured Fusion Energy Is Coming, and Maybe Sooner Than You Think The joke about fusion energy is that it’s 30 years away and always will be. But significant recent advances in fusion science and technology could potentially put the […]

Two projects focused on solar-powered hydrogen production made notable steps forward recently. One project, supported by Ricardo plc and the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC), will investigate “using existing solar capacity to produce hydrogen as an alternative to high-carbon fossil fuels.” While the other, developed by HyperSolar Inc., will begin the manufacturing process for its […]

It’s hurricane season in the U.S., which runs from June 1 through the end of November, and there have already been three named storms. The most recent was Tropical Storm Christobal, which was the earliest third-named Atlantic storm on record when it formed on June 2. It made landfall in the U.S. along the northern […]

Check valves are installed in many piping systems. Their purpose is to allow flow in only one direction, which can be critical for plant safety and to protect equipment from damage. There are a few different check valve designs, including swing check valves and spring-loaded poppet-style check valves. Understanding which type is best for a […]

POWER Magazine   Jobs   White Papers  Webinars   Events   Store   June 3, 2020 Featured Germany Brings Last New Coal Plant Online What is expected to be the last new coal plant to come online in Germany entered commercial operation on May 30, more than a decade after it was first planned.…   […]