Sonal Patel
Articles By

Sonal Patel

  • ISO-NE Warns Fuel Supply Issues May Threaten Winter Power System Reliability

    New England faces a precarious fuel supply risk that could necessitate emergency actions if a severe prolonged cold snap hits the region this winter, ISO New England (ISO-NE) has warned.  The regional grid operator expects power demand will peak at 19,710 MW during average winter weather conditions of 10F, but if temperatures plunge below 5F, […]

  • Darlington Nuclear Plant Will Get a BWRX-300 SMR as GE Hitachi Bags Lucrative OPG Selection

    Ontario Power Generation (OPG) will build a GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) BWRX-300 small modular reactor (SMR) at its Darlington Nuclear Station in Clarington, Ontario, marking a major triumph for the nuclear vendor in a stiff competition for the much-watched utility-scale project. OPG announced the selection of the GE Hitachi BWRX-300 SMR over competitors X-energy […]

  • NRC Accepts Application for Kairos Pebble-Bed Reactor Construction Permit

    The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) will review Kairos Power’s construction permit application (CPA) for its Hermes non-power demonstration reactor, which the firm has proposed to build at the East Tennessee Technology Park Heritage Center site, in Oak Ridge, and begin operating by 2026. The NRC formally accepted the CPA for review on Nov. 30, noting […]

  • POWERnews—Dec. 2, 2021

    POWER Magazine   Jobs   White Papers  Webinars   Events   Store   December 2, 2021 Darlington Nuclear Plant Will Get a BWRX-300 SMR as GE Hitachi Bags Lucrative OPG Selection Ontario Power Generation (OPG) will build a GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) BWRX-300 small modular reactor (SMR) at its Darlington Nuclear Station in Clarington, […]

  • UAE Industrial Giant Will Explore Conversion of 5.2-GW GE Gas Turbine Fleet to Hydrogen, CCUS

    Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA), an integrated aluminum producer that is also the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE’s) third-largest power generator, will develop a roadmap to decarbonize its 33 GE natural gas–fired turbines via hydrogen-switching and carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) solutions. EGA and GE announced they signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to pursue the […]

  • Next AP1000 Nuclear Reactor Will Be Built in Ukraine

    Ukraine is set to host its first Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear reactor at state-owned Energoatom’s 2-GW Khmelnytskyi nuclear power plant in the western part of the country. Under a contract signed on Nov. 22 by Patrick Fragman, president and CEO of Westinghouse, and Petro Kotin, Energoatom’s acting president, the two companies will begin engineering and procurement for […]

  • Why Thermal Energy Storage Offers Hot Prospects for Power

    Thermal energy storage (TES) is gaining interest and traction as a crucial enabler of reliable, secure, and flexible energy systems. The array of in-front-of-the-meter TES technologies under development

  • Space-Based Solar Power May Be Closer Than You Think

    The vision sounds far-fetched: If a kilometer-scale satellite could be outfitted with a hybrid array of photovoltaic (PV) and concentrating solar power (CSP) panels and launched into orbit 22,400 miles above

  • DOE Revives Consent-Based Siting Process for Commercial Spent Nuclear Fuel Disposal

    Potentially jumpstarting long-paralyzed efforts to address the federal management of spent nuclear fuel (SNF), the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) on Nov. 30 issued a request for information (RFI) that could determine where the agency will temporarily consolidate and store spent fuel from nuclear reactors across the nation. Under the RFI, the DOE is seeking […]

  • POWERnews—Nov. 24, 2021

    POWER Magazine   Jobs   White Papers  Webinars   Events   Store   November 24, 2021 More Than 20 Coal-Fired Plants Will Close in Wake of Wastewater Rule A new wastewater rule authorized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) earlier this year is leading several coal-fired plants to announce closure plans, according to an […]

  • California 3,200-MWh CAES Project Proposed for Grid Stability After Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant Retires

    Hydrostor, developer of a 400-MW, 8-hour long-duration advanced compressed air energy storage (A-CAES) facility, has filed an application for certification (AFC) with the California Energy Commission (CEC) for its first project in the state, envisioning its commercial operation as early as 2026. If the 3,200-MWh Pecho Energy Storage Center is built as planned in San […]

  • POWERnews—Nov. 18, 2021

    POWER Magazine   Jobs   White Papers  Webinars   Events   Store   November 18, 2021 NERC Issues Grim Outlook for Bulk Power System Winter Reliability The North American Electric Corp. (NERC) is warning that the bulk of the central U.S.—a region that stretches from the Great Lakes into southern Texas—may face critical power shortages […]

  • NERC Issues Grim Outlook for Bulk Power System Winter Reliability

    The North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) is warning that much of the central U.S.—a region that stretches from the Great Lakes into southern Texas—may face critical power deficiencies during extreme winter weather conditions over the next three months. Natural gas supply disruptions and low hydropower conditions could also imperil power reliability in New England […]

  • Breakthrough: NET Power’s Allam Cycle Test Facility Delivers First Power to ERCOT Grid

    NET Power, developer of the novel Allam-Fetvedt supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) power cycle, says its 50-MWth test facility in La Porte, Texas, delivered power to the grid overnight on Nov. 16. The achievement marks a major milestone for the potentially revolutionary technology for which several commercial power plants are already under development. NET Power, a business venture […]

  • Coal Plant Site Unveiled for 500-MW Natrium Advanced Nuclear Pilot

    A site at PacifiCorp’s retiring 600-MW coal and gas–fired Naughton Power Plant in Kemmerer, Wyoming, will house the Natrium demonstration, a pioneering commercial-scale 500-MW project that will pair a 345-MW sodium-cooled fast reactor with a molten salt-based energy storage system. Project stakeholders on Nov. 16 unveiled the site for the federally backed demonstration, which will validate […]

  • POWERnews—Nov. 11, 2021

    POWER Magazine   Jobs   White Papers  Webinars   Events   Store   November 11, 2021 GE Splitting Into Three Companies, Will Spin Off Energy Group General Electric (GE) has announced plans to split into three separate companies, breaking up into publicly traded groups for its energy, healthcare, and aviation divisions. The company on Nov. […]

  • Industry’s First Complete Accident-Tolerant Nuclear Assembly in Operation at Calvert Cliffs

    The first complete accident-tolerant fuel (ATF) assembly is now operational at Exelon’s Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant Unit 2 in Maryland, bringing an industry-led quest to accelerate commercialization of the new nuclear technology closer to fruition. Inserted during the plant’s recent spring refueling outage, the lead fuel assembly (LFA) features a Framatome PROtect fuel design […]

  • Dominion Estimates $10B Installation Cost for 2.6-GW Virginia Offshore Wind Farm

    Dominion Energy is revving up its efforts to build the 2.6-GW Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) commercial project before 2027 to meet state requirements, it said in a detailed filing for the $9.8 billion project submitted to the Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC) on Nov. 5.  CVOW, which will be sited on a federal lease […]

  • POWERnews—Nov. 4. 2021

    POWER Magazine   Jobs   White Papers  Webinars   Events   Store   November 4, 2021 Indonesia, Vietnam, Poland, S. Korea, Ukraine Commit to Phasing Out Coal Power At least 23 nations, including five notable coal-dependent countries—Indonesia, Vietnam, Poland, South Korea, and Ukraine—made new commitments to phase out unbated coal power at the COP26 conference […]

  • Indonesia, Vietnam, Poland, S. Korea, Ukraine Commit to Phasing Out Coal Power

    At least 23 nations, including five notable coal-dependent countries—Indonesia, Vietnam, Poland, South Korea, and Ukraine—made new commitments during the COP26 conference in Scotland on Nov. 4 to phase out unabated coal power. In total, 47 countries supported the “Global Coal to Clean Power Transition Statement” at the international climate talks underway in Glasgow. In the […]

  • India Sets Net-Zero Goal for 2070, Calls for $1T in Firm Climate Finance Commitments

    India, a nation heavily reliant on coal power, will set out to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2070, Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged in a surprise declaration at the ongoing COP 26 climate summit on Nov. 1. While India’s central government has yet to issue a detailed plan to achieve the necessary carbon […]

  • How an AP1000 Plant Is Changing the Nuclear Power Paradigm Through District Heating, Desalination

    Already remarkable for being the world’s second Westinghouse AP1000 reactor to be brought online, Shandong Nuclear Power Co.’s Haiyang nuclear power plant is pioneering two significant aspects of nuclear

  • A New Frontier: Quantum Computing in the Power Sector

    Digitalization, driven by big data, the industrial internet of things (IIOT), and even artificial intelligence (AI), has made its mark on the power industry, allowing for greater transparency into operations

  • POWERnews—Oct. 28, 2021

    POWER Magazine   Jobs   White Papers  Webinars   Events   Store   October 28, 2021 AEP Will Shed Kentucky Operations in $2.9B Sale  American Electric Power (AEP) is shedding its Kentucky-based assets—including its longstanding regulated utility Kentucky Power and transmission business AEP Kentucky Transco—to better position itself to invest in projects that will… Carbon […]

  • Siemens Energy Pulls Out of Global Hydropower Joint Venture

    In another effort to streamline its business, Siemens Energy has moved to relinquish a 35% stake in Voith Hydro, a hydropower-focused joint venture it had long held with German technology company Voith Group. Munich-headquartered Siemens Energy and Heidenheim-headquartered Voith Group announced in separate releases on Oct. 22 that they had reached a mutual agreement to […]

  • AEP Will Shed Kentucky Operations in $2.9B Sale 

    American Electric Power (AEP) is shedding its Kentucky-based assets—including its longstanding regulated utility Kentucky Power and transmission business AEP Kentucky Transco—to better position itself to invest in projects that will support a resilient, cleaner energy system. The Columbus, Ohio, headquartered company on Oct. 26 announced it has entered into an agreement for the sale of […]

  • The POWER Interview: Pioneering STEP Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Demonstration Readying for 2022 Commissioning

    Construction of the 10-MWe Supercritical Transformational Electric Power (STEP) pilot plant, a public-private collaboration to demonstrate and test supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) power generating technology, is making marked progress toward a mid-2022 startup date.  Attendees from Experience POWER, HydrogeNext, and the Distributed Energy Conference, three of POWER’s annual in-person events, which took place last week in […]

  • POWERnews—Oct. 22, 2021

    POWER Magazine   Jobs   White Papers  Webinars   Events   Store   October 22, 2021 Texas-Based Utility Teams Up with Mitsubishi Power to Explore Carbon Reduction Opportunities El Paso Electric (EPE) and Mitsubishi Power have signed a joint development agreement (JDA) “creating a collaboration framework to jointly develop projects that will enable EPE to […]

  • DOE Envisions Future Grid’s Transformation into a ‘Network’

    The grid must accommodate more inverter-based generation and adequately handle the bi-directional flow of electricity, but it must also apply alternative grid configurations and coordinate planning and operations across multiple participants and jurisdictions. That’s the vision Michael Pesin, deputy assistant secretary for the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Advanced Grid Research and Development division, outlined in […]

  • From POWER’s New Editors’ Studio: Business Trends Driving Opportunities, Challenges

    At the Experience POWER conference, held in San Antonio, Texas, this week, POWER’s editorial team conducted several live interviews with industry leaders at its new Editors’ Studio. Here’s a recap of what you might have missed.  Executive Editor Aaron Larson talked to Paul Browning, president and CEO of Mitsubishi Power Americas (a company that sponsored the new video offering), […]