Five board members of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the state’s power grid operator, on Feb. 23 announced they would resign their posts, just days after extreme winter weather left more than 4 million Texas electricity customers without power for several days. Sally Talberg, chairwoman of ERCOT, is among those resigning. All those […]

The fallout from the severe weather that crippled the power grid in Texas and other states over the past week continues, as officials grapple with what went wrong and who should be held accountable for an energy emergency that left millions without electricity. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Feb. 19 said his office would […]

POWER Magazine   Jobs   White Papers  Webinars   Events   Store   February 17, 2021 GE Turbines Will Supply Europe's Largest Onshore Wind Farm GE Renewable Energy and independent asset manager Luxcara announced an agreement to develop Europe's largest onshore wind farm, an installation that includes a 25-year full-turbine service and maintenance contract. Luxcara… […]

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has said reforming the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) is an emergency item for state legislators in the current session, as power outages continue across the state for another day due to record cold temperatures as part of a massive winter storm. The governor on Feb. 16 said he wants […]

GE Renewable Energy and independent asset manager Luxcara announced an agreement to develop Europe’s largest onshore wind farm, an installation that includes a 25-year full-turbine service and maintenance contract. Luxcara has begun infrastructure work on the project in Sweden. GE Renewable Energy on Feb. 15 said it expects to begin installing the first of 137 […]

The global energy sector, including utilities, is looking at a talent drain. As older workers retire, the competition to recruit younger workers to replace them has heated up. The power generation industry today is more digitized, reliant on expertise in analyzing data and developing software. That means many workers who could move into positions at […]

POWER Magazine   Jobs   White Papers  Webinars   Events   Store   February 10, 2021 GE Gas Turbines Will Replace Coal at Colorado Plant The plan to retire the last coal-fired units at a power plant in Colorado has moved a step closer to completion, with the announcement that Colorado Springs Utilities (CSU) has… […]

The plan to retire the last coal-fired units at a power plant in Colorado has moved a step closer to completion, with the announcement that Colorado Springs Utilities (CSU) has chosen General Electric (GE) technology to keep the plant operating at least temporarily as a gas-fired facility. GE on Feb. 10 announced that six of […]

Air Liquide SA, the French industrial-gas supplier, and Germany’s Siemens Energy AG announced they have signed a memorandum of understanding to jointly develop electrolysis and hydrogen technology. The companies on Feb. 8 said they will collaborate on industrial-scale hydrogen projects. They said the joint venture is designed to support the development and mass manufacturing of […]

The increased use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in the power generation sector has a goal of making electricity production both more efficient, and secure. Developing ways to more quickly analyze ever-larger amounts of data is driving innovation among those people responsible for the operation of power plants and generation equipment. Many […]

The South Korean government has announced a major part of the country’s effort to reduce reliance on fossil fuels. President Moon Jae-in on Feb. 5 attended a ceremony in which contracts were signed for a 48.5 trillion won ($43.2 billion) plan to build the world’s largest offshore wind farm by 2030, an installation that would […]

A report from Morgan Stanley, a global wealth management company, said coal-fired power generation is likely to disappear from the U.S. power grid by 2033, largely displaced by renewable energy resources. The report published Feb. 1 said renewable energy such as solar and wind power will provide nearly 40% of U.S. electricity in 2030, and […]

Siemens Energy announced it will cut 7,800 jobs from its gas and power division by 2025 as the company attempts to be more competitive in a global energy market that is moving away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy. The company on Feb. 2 in its latest earnings release said it plans to jettison […]

The first of two new reactors at a nuclear power plant in China has entered commercial operation, becoming that country’s 50th operating reactor, according to the China Nuclear Energy Association (CNEA). Hualong One is a third-generation pressurized water reactor, developed by China National Nuclear Corp. (CNNC) and China General Nuclear Power. It is the fifth […]

Power plant operators continually search for ways to make electricity production and transmission more efficient. With more generation sources coming online, the use of artificial intelligence and machine

Mini-grids—smaller off-grid electricity distribution networks—are being recognized as a cost-effective solution to bring power to rural communities that often have no access to a traditional power grid

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are becoming synonymous with the operation of power generation facilities. The increased digitization of power plants, from equipment to software, involves both thermal generation and renewable energy installations. Both AI and ML will be key elements for the design of future energy systems, supporting the growth of smart […]

With the start of a new year comes new year resolutions, new campaigns, new administrations, new policy goals, and new initiatives. To kick off 2021, POWER talked with Jens Wolf, vice president and general manager of Europe at Enviva, a renewable energy company and the world’s largest producer of industrial wood pellets. Wolf has more […]

The electrification of the transportation sector has received a boost as General Motors (GM) said it “aspires” to exclusively offer electric vehicles (EVs) by 2035, ending production of its cars, trucks, and sport utility vehicles (SUVs) with diesel- and gasoline-powered engines. The company has said it wants to be carbon neutral by 2040 across its […]

The developer of the Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant project said impacts from the coronavirus pandemic may delay construction of the new reactors by six months, and raise the project’s costs by nearly £500 million ($700 million). EDF Energy in a Jan. 27 update on the plant’s progress said the total cost for the […]

President Biden has signed executive orders designed to move the U.S. to carbon neutrality by midcentury, part of a $2 trillion plan that would overhaul the nation’s electricity and transportation sectors. The president’s plan, outlined Jan. 27, focuses on climate change and includes a White House task force that would direct policies on greenhouse gas […]

The coronavirus pandemic and resulting global economic slowdown curtailed some energy projects in 2020, but corporations worldwide still bought a record 23.7 GW of clean power through long-term purchase agreements. That’s according to research published Jan. 26 by BloombergNEF (BNEF). The group in its “1H 2021 Corporate Energy Market Outlook” said more than 130 companies, […]

A report from a major environmental group said that coal-fired power generation will continue to play a large role in U.S. electricity production for at least another 10 years. The Sierra Club report published Jan. 25, based on a review of integrated resource plans (IRPs) from the 50 U.S. utilities most invested in coal-fired and […]

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) new leadership team is a diverse group of individuals with a wide range of experience across the power sector and academia. The names announced Jan. 21 include Kelly Speakes-Backman, who has served as the first CEO of the Energy Storage Association (ESA) and was a keynote speaker at POWER’s […]

POWER Magazine   Jobs   White Papers  Webinars   Events   Store   January 20, 2021 Vistra Energizes Massive 1.2-GWh Battery System at California Gas Plant Vistra Energy, the nation’s largest competitive generator, has begun operating a 300-MW/1,200-MWh lithium-ion battery storage system on its 1,020-MW combined cycle gas turbine Moss Landing power plant site in […]

A federal appeals court has vacated the Trump administration’s rollback of Obama-era greenhouse gas emission standards for power plants. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on Jan. 19 said the measure intended to replace those standards, the Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule, “rested critically on a mistaken […]

The goal of economic power generation from fusion has been elusive, but that hasn’t deterred researchers from exploring ways to develop the technology in a way that would support commercial electricity production. POWER magazine has covered the evolution of fusion research and development for many years, and nuclear experts now think we could be just […]

A British company announced it is joining with U.S.-based NuScale Power to develop a hybrid project using wind energy and small modular reactor (SMR) technology to produce power and green hydrogen. Shearwater Energy, a global energy services company, on Jan. 15 said it and NuScale have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to collaborate on […]

General Electric (GE) has filed a lawsuit accusing “willful and malicious misappropriation of GE’s trade secrets” by Siemens Energy, charging that a current Siemens employee “knowingly and surreptitiously” received GE intellectual property, which led to Siemens using the information to improve its own bids for lucrative contracts supplying gas turbines to utilities. GE in the […]

A natural gas exploration company working in the Bakken Shale has announced plans to build a $400 million power plant in North Dakota that would run on ethane. Bakken Midstream Natural Gas (BMNG) on Jan. 12 said it hopes to begin construction of the Williston Basin Energy Center in 2022. The company in a news […]