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.

  • POWERnews—June 18, 2020

    POWER Magazine   Jobs   White Papers  Webinars   Events   Store   June 25, 2020 Featured Siemens Gamesa Has New Head After Terminating CEO Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy (SGRE) has announced Andreas Nauen, who has led the growth of the company’s offshore wind power business, is taking over leadership of the company after the… […]

  • OPG Becomes First Utility to Snag Ownership Stake in Nuclear Microreactor Project

    Marking the first time a utility has taken an ownership stake in a small modular reactor (SMR) project, Ontario Power Generation (OPG) formed a joint venture with Seattle-based Ultra Safe Nuclear Corp. (USNC) to build, own, and operate a proposed Micro Modular Reactor (MMR) demonstration at the Chalk River Laboratories (CRL) site in Ontario, Canada.  […]

  • POWERnews—June 11, 2020

    POWER Magazine   Jobs   White Papers  Webinars   Events   Store   June 11, 2020 Featured Vogtle Project 'Highly Unlikely' to Meet Deadlines An official monitoring the progress of the Vogtle nuclear expansion project in Georgia said in testimony filed June 5 with the state’s Public Service Commission that the two new reactors…   […]

  • Hydrogen May Be a Lifeline for Nuclear—But It Won’t Be Easy

    Four U.S. nuclear generators—Energy Harbor, Xcel Energy, Exelon, and Arizona Public Service (APS)—are making headway on projects to demonstrate hydrogen production at nuclear plants, but scaling those efforts up to net new end-users and sources of revenue is still ridden with hurdles, company officials said in a panel discussion at the American Nuclear Society’s (ANS’s) […]

  • IEA: COVID-19 Crushed Global Natural Gas Demand

    Hit hard by response to the COVID-19 pandemic, global gas demand in 2020 is set to to tumble by twice the amount lost after the 2008 global financial crisis—its largest annual decline in history—the International Energy Agency (IEA) says in its latest annual market report Gas 2020.  As of June 2020, the fall has been […]

  • POWERnews—June 4, 2020

    POWER Magazine   Jobs   White Papers  Webinars   Events   Store   June 4, 2020 Featured World’s First Integrated Hydrogen Power-to-Power Demonstration Launched A consortium of European companies, research institutes, and universities have launched the world’s first demonstration of a fully integrated power-to-hydrogen-to-power project, at industrial scale and in a real-world power plant… EPA […]

  • World’s First Integrated Hydrogen Power-to-Power Demonstration Launched

    A consortium of European companies, research institutes, and universities have launched the world’s first demonstration of a fully integrated power-to-hydrogen-to-power project, at industrial scale and in a real-world power plant application. The four-year project to demonstrate HYFLEXPOWER, which has achieved a technology readiness level of 7, will convert a 12-MWe combined heat and power (CHP) […]

  • NERC: Summer 2020 Reliability Rife With Unknowns

    Despite COVID-19’s impact on power demand, disrupted pre-season generation preparation, and an expected highly active hurricane and wildfire season, industry appears well-positioned to meet peak demand this summer under anticipated weather in nearly all parts of the North American bulk power system (BPS).  Other than in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), anticipated reserve […]

  • A Multi-Layered Reinvention: AES Southland Projects

    Recognizing excellence in creative problem-solving to give a project new life and a new role, POWER magazine’s 2020 Reinvention Award goes to two gas-fired power plant construction projects completed

  • Rethinking Wastewater Treatment for Better FGD Economics

    POWER’s 2020 Water Award goes to Saltworks Technologies for successfully piloting a novel application of a 50-year-old technology at a coal plant. The company’s solution promises to slash costs of treating

  • THE BIG PICTURE: Pandemic Impact on Demand

    The coronavirus pandemic has triggered a macroeconomic shock that is unprecedented in peacetime. By the end of the first quarter, its effects on global power demand were deep, the International Energy Agency (IEA) noted in a flagship report released on April 30. The international organization, which has collected daily data for more than 30 countries […]

  • Industry to Explore Decentralized Nuclear Waste Disposal

    Efforts to explore whether it is feasible to permanently dispose of high-level nuclear waste in deep horizontal boreholes under next-generation nuclear reactor sites got a boost in late April as nuclear waste

  • POWERnews—May 28, 2020

    POWER Magazine   Jobs   White Papers  Webinars   Events   Store   May 28, 2020 Featured Siemens Details Spinoff of Energy Business The parent of Siemens Energy on May 26 provided details of the planned spinoff of the company’s energy business, saying 55% of Siemens Energy will be spun off to Siemens’…   With […]

  • IRS Grants Wind and Solar Sectors Critical COVID-19 Reprieves

    The U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has granted a one-year extension of the continuity safe harbor, providing much-needed relief for many wind developers, which, crippled by pandemic-related delays, were racing to complete projects before crucial tax incentives expired at the end of this year.  In its May 27–issued Notice 2020-41, the IRS essentially modified prior […]

  • [VIDEO] POWER Insights: Nuclear Reactor with 3D-Printed Core Slated for Operation in 2023

    In the first installment of POWER’s brand new video interview series, POWER Insights, Kurt Terrani, technical director of the Transformational Challenge Reactor (TCR) program, talks to POWER Senior Associate Editor Sonal Patel about the innovative microreactor program spearheaded by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and project partners, including Idaho National Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, and […]

  • POWERnews—May 21, 2020

    POWER Magazine   Jobs   White Papers  Webinars   Events   Store   May 21, 2020 Featured Group Says It Will Launch World's Largest Green Hydrogen Project Global energy company SGH2, part of Washington, D.C.-based Solena Group, said it has a deal with Lancaster, California, to build what the company calls the world’s biggest green […]

  • Trump Expands Regulatory Rollback, Including for Power, Amid Economic Fallout

    President Trump in a new executive order (EO) has directed federal agencies to rescind, modify, waive, or provide exemptions from regulatory requirements that may inhibit economic recovery.  The Executive Order on Regulatory Relief to Support Economic Recovery, issued May 19, is sweeping and extends beyond the administration’s previous efforts to scale down regulatory mandates—including the […]

  • IEA: Renewables Showing Resiliency Despite Serious COVID Disruptions

    Renewable power sources will mark their first annual decline in new additions in 20 years, owing to delays in construction activity, supply chain disruptions, lockdown and social distancing measures, and emerging financing challenges related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite this, the sector has showed “impressive” resilience, said the International Energy Agency (IEA) in a new […]

  • DOE  Launches Program to Demonstrate Advanced Nuclear Reactors Within 5 Years

    Bolstered by $230 million in Congressionally appropriated funding, the Department of Energy (DOE) has officially launched the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP) to help U.S.-based private developers of advanced nuclear reactors demonstrate their technology in the U.S. Much anticipated by industry, the program formally established under the Office of Nuclear Energy program on May 14 […]

  • POWERnews—May 14, 2020

    POWER Magazine   Jobs   White Papers  Webinars   Events   Store   May 14, 2020 Featured Analysts Say 594,300 Jobs in Clean Energy Lost to Pandemic Four groups analyzing data from the U.S. Dept. of Labor said more than half-a-million jobs in the clean energy sector were lost in March and April due to […]

  • Despite COVID-19, ERCOT Expects Record Summer Demand; Retired Coal Plant May Resume Service

    Despite uncertainties posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) again expects to shatter its peak demand record this summer. Factoring in changes to its generation profile, extreme weather, and low wind output, the grid operator expects energy alerts are still possible.  ERCOT’s forward-looking projections for capacity, demand, and reserves are murkier, […]

  • Advanced Nuclear Reactor Designs to Get Digital Twins

    Nine projects will get $27 million in federal funding to develop digital twin technology for promising advanced nuclear reactor designs—including Kairos, Xe-100, BWRX-300, and the SSR-W—and help achieve a ten-fold reduction in their operations and maintenance (O&M) costs. The funding announced by the Department of Energy (DOE) on May 13 will be furnished under the […]

  • Nuclear Reactor with 3D-Printed Core Slated for Operation in 2023

    A first-of-its-kind nuclear reactor that will use a 3D-printed core, advanced materials, and integrated sensors and controls is on track for completion by 2023. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, work is ramping up to demonstrate the Transformational Challenge Reactor (TCR), an innovative micro-reactor program spearheaded by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and project partners, to include […]

  • POWERnews—May 7, 2020

    POWER Magazine   Jobs   White Papers  Webinars   Events   Store   May 13, 2020 Featured Trump Ban on Foreign Bulk Power Equipment Triggers New Uncertainty Declaring a national emergency over threats to the U.S. bulk power system (BPS), President Trump in an executive order (EO) on May 1 issued a sweeping ban on […]

  • Power Sector Council Releases COVID-19 Return-to-Work Guidance

    The Electricity Subsector Coordinating Council (ESCC) has released guidance on what the power sector should prioritize as it prepares to shift from remote operations to having employees return to the workplace.   In the seventh version of the “ESCC Resource Guide—Assessing and Mitigating the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19),” the power industry’s collaborative body identifies four strategic priorities […]

  • Trump Ban on Foreign Bulk Power Equipment Triggers New Uncertainty

    Declaring a national emergency over threats to the U.S. bulk power system (BPS), President Trump in an executive order (EO) on May 1 issued a sweeping ban on transactions by U.S. persons for electric equipment sourced abroad if the U.S. government determines they pose undue security risks. Because foreign adversaries are “increasingly creating and exploiting […]

  • A Nuclear Power Side Venture: Medical Isotope Production

    Earlier this year, nuclear technology giant Framatome and power sector lifecycle management service company Kinectrics launched an Ontario-based joint venture, Isogen, whose mission is to enable the use of

  • Coal Plant Conversion to Non-Recyclable Plastic Waste Combustion Advances

    A hundred metric tons of innovative fuel pellets derived entirely from biogenic and plastic waste material—which would otherwise be bound for a landfill—have been successfully produced, marking a

  • Is Geothermal Power on the Brink of a Boom?

    After several years of stagnancy, prospects for the geothermal power industry are heating up. Over the past year, it has seen a flurry of legislative boosts, an uptick of power purchase agreements, and

  • THE BIG PICTURE (Infographic): Capital Costs

    The Energy Information Administration (EIA) in February 2020 published capital costs and performance characteristic estimates for 25 new electric power generating technologies. These estimates come from global engineering and design firm Sargent & Lundy (S&L), which the EIA commissioned to help accurately reflect the changing cost of new power generation technologies for the Annual Energy […]