Sonal Patel
Articles By

Sonal Patel

Sonal Patel is a national award-winning multimedia journalist and senior editor at POWER magazine with nearly two decades of experience delivering technically rigorous reporting across power generation, transmission, distribution, policy, and infrastructure worldwide.

  • Reprieve for Nuclear, Gas in EU’s Sustainable Finance Taxonomy Rules

    The European Union’s (EU’s) much-watched Taxonomy Climate Delegated Act—the world’s first “green list”—unveiled by the European Commission (EC) on April 21 qualifies several power-producing sectors in its technical screening criteria for sustainable investment decisions. However, it delays controversial decisions on gas and nuclear.  The EC adopted the Delegated Act as part of an ambitious package […]

  • Biden Sets New Paris Agreement GHG Target: 50-52% below 2005 levels by 2030

    President Biden has set a new nationally determined contribution (NDC) for the U.S. to achieve a 50% to 52% reduction in economy-wide greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2030 compared to 2005 levels.  The White House said on Thursday the NDC, which was determined after a “a whole-of-government process”  organized through the Biden administration’s National Climate […]

  • 8 Rivers Unveils 560 MW of Allam Cycle Gas-Fired Projects for Colorado, Illinois

    8 Rivers Capital, inventor of a novel supercritical carbon dioxide (CO2) cycle, plans to begin operating a 280-MW NET Power natural gas–fired plant within the Southern Ute Indian Reservation in southwest Colorado by 2025. The company on April 15 also said it will team with agricultural and processing firm Archer-Daniels-Midlands Co. (ADM) to locate a […]

  • POWERnews—April 15, 2021

    POWER Magazine   Jobs   White Papers  Webinars   Events   Store   April 15, 2021 8 Rivers Unveils 560 MW of Allam Cycle Gas-Fired Projects for Colorado, Illinois 8 Rivers Capital, inventor of a novel supercritical carbon dioxide (CO2) cycle, plans to begin operating a 280-MW NET Power natural gas-fired plant within the Southern […]

  • ERCOT Conditions Tighten Again as Outages Mount to 32 GW

    The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) on April 13 urged Texans to conserve power as grid conditions tightened owing to a “a combination of high generation outages typical in April and higher-than-forecasted demand from a stalled cold front over Texas.” The Texas grid operator, which in February narrowly avoided system collapse as Winter Storm […]

  • ARPA-E Launches Program to Abate, Prevent Methane Emissions

    The Department of Energy (DOE) on April 8 launched a new Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) program that will initially focus on reducing methane emissions from oil, gas, and coal industries.  The agency announced up to $35 million for the new “Reducing Emissions of Methane Every Day of the Year” (REMEDY) program, a three-year research […]

  • Vistra Backs Illinois Transition Measure to Keep At-Risk Coal Plants Online Through 2025

    Bleeding financially from underperforming and legally burdened coal generation in downstate Illinois and elsewhere, Vistra, the nation’s largest competitive generator, has renewed its call for passage of the Illinois Coal to Solar and Energy Storage Act, a bill that could help keep 2.2 GW of existing at-risk capacity online through 2025 while the state expands […]

  • POWERnews—April 1, 2021

    POWER Magazine   Jobs   White Papers  Webinars   Events   Store   April 1, 2021 Power Infrastructure Prominent in Biden’s $2.25 Trillion Blueprint A major chunk of President Joe Biden’s $2.25 trillion transformational plan to overhaul the nation’s infrastructure is dedicated to re-energizing America’s power infrastructure. The initiatives garnered the industry’s approval—with notable… Compact […]

  • Power Infrastructure Prominent in Biden’s $2.25 Trillion Blueprint

    A major chunk of President Joe Biden’s $2.25 trillion transformational plan to overhaul the nation’s infrastructure is dedicated to re-energizing America’s power infrastructure. The initiatives garnered the industry’s approval—with notable exceptions. The “American Jobs Plan,” released on March 31, strives to jumpstart the U.S. economy, which drooped under burdens posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. But […]

  • First Commercial Deployment of Supercritical CO2 Power Cycle Taking Shape in Alberta

    Siemens Energy and Canadian pipeline company TC Energy in February agreed to commission a novel waste-heat-to-power facility in Alberta by 2022 that captures waste heat from a gas-fired turbine operating a

  • Ocean Power Developers Made Crucial Progress in 2020

    Tidal and wave energy installations in 2020 brought global cumulative installations for ocean energy to almost 60 MW. Another 6 MW of wave and tidal energy is slated for deployment this year, suggesting marked

  • GE Snags Historic 1.48-GW Agreement for Oklahoma Wind Turbines

    GE Renewable Energy has bagged what it says is the “largest combined onshore wind project” in its history to provide wind turbines for a set of three wind farms privately held sustainable energy firm Invenergy is developing in north-central Oklahoma.  Invenergy’s 1.48-GW North Central Wind Energy Facilities include the 999-MW Traverse Wind Energy Center, the […]

  • New Mexico Sues NRC to Halt Consolidated Interim Nuclear Waste Storage Facilities

    New Mexico has sued the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), challenging the legality of the agency’s proceedings involving separate proposals to build and operate two consolidated interim storage facilities (CISFs) for spent nuclear fuel (SNF) in New Mexico and Texas.  In a complaint filed on March 29 against the NRC and the U.S. government, New Mexico […]

  • Biden Administration Sets National 30-GW Offshore Wind Target

    The Biden administration on March 29 laid out a spate of measures to deploy 30 GW of offshore wind in the U.S. by 2030, an ambitious target that will require a vast scale-up in investment and build-out of the still latent power subsector. But if achieved, the target would unlock “a pathway” to 110 GW […]

  • POWERnews—March 25, 2021

    POWER Magazine   Jobs   White Papers  Webinars   Events   Store   March 25, 2021 BP Details Plan for UK's Largest Hydrogen Project The global market for hydrogen development has taken another step forward, as oil and gas major BP announced it is studying development of what it said would be the UK's… Sponsored […]

  • Centrus on Track to Produce HALEU Nuclear Fuel Material by Early 2022

    Centrus Energy, a firm under contract with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to demonstrate production of high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) with domestic technology, says it expects to begin producing the advanced nuclear fuel material by June 2022 at the American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon, Ohio. Centrus President and CEO Daniel Poneman said on March […]

  • NARUC Steps Up to Educate States About Nuclear ‘Barriers, Possibilities’

    The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) has kicked off a five-year partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to educate state public service commissioners and commission staff about barriers and possibilities related to the U.S. nuclear fleet.  The non-profit organization whose members include state regulatory agencies in all 50 states said on March […]

  • GE Hitachi Advances Collaboration to Bolster BWRX-300 SMR Deployment in Estonia

    GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) and Estonian firm Fermi Energia OÜ have entered into a teaming agreement to support potential deployment of a BWRX-300 small modular reactor (SMR) in the Baltic country. The agreement between the technology company and the firm established in 2019 by nuclear industry professionals comes two years after the companies inked […]

  • ERCOT Lists Generators Forced Offline During Texas Extreme Cold Event

    The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) in freshly revealed data on March 4 reported that the Texas grid suffered 1,796 generating or energy storage outages or derates as winter storm Uri bore down on the state in mid-February.  The grid operator made the list public in a letter it sent to lawmakers in the […]

  • POWERnews—March 4, 2021

    POWER Magazine   Jobs   White Papers  Webinars   Events   Store   March 4, 2021 Board Votes to Fire ERCOT CEO Board members of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the entity that operates and manages the electricity grid that covers much of Texas, voted late on March 3 to… Siemens Studies Hydrogen […]

  • U.S. House Bill Introduces Federal Zero-Emissions Electricity Standard

    A sweeping climate proposal introduced by U.S. House Democrats on March 2 sets a stringent clean energy electricity mandate for power retailers nationwide, requiring they procure 100% of their power supplies from zero-emitting generation by 2035.  Among its slew of measures aimed at achieving net-zero emissions nationwide by 2050, the Climate Leadership and Environmental Action […]

  • The POWER Interview: USNC Making Headway on Advanced Nuclear Fuel

    In a brief interview this February, Francesco Venneri, Ultra Safe Nuclear Corp. CEO, explained to POWER why the company’s development of its proprietary fully ceramic microencapsulated (FCM) fuel is significant for the future of advanced nuclear, and how the company plans to roll it out.  Seattle-based Ultra Safe Nuclear Corp. (USNC), developer of the 5-MWe […]

  • Mitsubishi Power Developing 100% Ammonia-Capable Gas Turbine

    Mitsubishi Power is developing a 40-MW class gas turbine that can directly combust 100% ammonia under an initiative that responds to heightened global decarbonization ambitions, as well as Japan’s recent roadmap for ammonia fuel.  The Yokohama–headquartered power equipment firm, a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI), on March 1 said it is targeting commercialization of […]

  • 1.6-GW Coal Plant May Get New Life as Green Hydrogen Hub

    Global technology heavyweights Shell and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Swedish state-owned energy firm Vattenfall, and German municipal heat generator Wärme Hamburg are teaming on a massive project to repurpose a 2015-commissioned 1.6-GW coal plant in northern Germany as a massive green hydrogen hub.  The four companies in January said they signed a letter of intent to […]

  • The Allure of TRISO Nuclear Fuel Explained

    Tristructural isotropic (TRISO) particle fuel has long been used in high-temperature gas-cooled nuclear reactors, but it is seeing a resurgence as a result of other applications. Modern TRISO fuel designs are

  • Fukushima’s Decade-Long Shadow Made Nuclear Safer

    Koji Okamoto, director general of the Japan Atomic Energy Agency’s (JAEA’s) Collaborative Laboratories for Advanced Decommissioning Science (CLADS), can pinpoint the specific moment that cemented his

  • POWERnews—Feb. 25, 2021

    POWER Magazine   Jobs   White Papers  Webinars   Events   Store   February 25, 2021 Exelon to Split Business, Spin Off Generation Segment Responding to rapid changes in the power industry, Exelon Corp. plans to cleave its business into two publicly traded companies: one comprising its six regulated electric and gas utilities, and…   […]

  • Exelon to Split Business, Spin Off Generation Segment

    Responding to rapid changes in the power industry, Exelon Corp. plans to cleave its business into two publicly traded companies: one comprising its six regulated electric and gas utilities, and the other, which it plans to spin off, comprising its 31-GW competitive generation fleet and customer-facing businesses.  The separation—which the company’s Board of Directors approved […]

  • GE Debuts Giant 9HA.02 Gas Turbines at 1.4-GW Plant in Malaysia

    Two GE 9HA.02 gas turbines—the largest model of GE’s second-generation H-class heavy-duty gas turbine fleet and one of the largest gas turbine models on the global market—on Feb. 24 began commercial operation at Southern Power Generation’s (SPG’s) 1,440-MW Track 4A Power Plant in Pasir Gudang, Johor, Malaysia.  The combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) plant, built […]

  • POWERnews—Feb. 18, 2021

    POWER Magazine   Jobs   White Papers  Webinars   Events   Store   February 18, 2021 ERCOT Signaling Some Relief as Power Crisis Stretches Into Fourth Day After three harrowing days during which the Texas grid veered precipitously toward system collapse, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) has begun directing transmission operators to cease […]