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.
Only “high hazard” CCR units will be subject to immediate compliance deadlines under a newly proposed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule that revises federal permit requirements for the management of coal combustion residuals (CCRs) at power plants. If finalized, the rule will apply to all coal facilities in Indian country and the 48 U.S. states […]
December 19, 2019 NERC: Long-Term Reliability Uncertain Amid Rapid Changes to Bulk Power System Significant and rapid changes that are reshaping North America’s power sector will likely leave Texas and Ontario, Canada, with supply shortfalls over the next decade, and energy deficiencies could also… Read More EU Finalizes 'Green Deal' for Clean Energy Investment The […]
Significant and rapid changes that are reshaping North America’s power sector will likely leave Texas and Ontario, Canada, with supply shortfalls over the next decade, and energy deficiencies could also occur during off-peak conditions in the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) area and the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) region, the North American Electric Reliability […]
Three first-of-their-kind Siemens Gamesa 5-MW wind turbines will be installed on the island of Thyholm in Denmark at a project that will be operated without subsidies. The company announced on Dec. 19 it has entered into a contract with Torp Vind I/S for the delivery of three SG 5.0-132 models for the 15-MW Torp Vindmoellepark […]
Japanese technology conglomerate Hitachi will withdraw from Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems (MHPS), a joint venture it established in 2014 with another power equipment giant, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI), over a dispute stemming from construction of two massive defect-ridden coal plants in South Africa. Under a Dec. 18-announced settlement reached by MHI and Hitachi, Hitachi will […]
December 12, 2019 Ownership Shakeup at Colstrip Coal Power Plant NorthWestern Energy said it will file an application with the Montana Public Service Commission for pre-approval to acquire Puget Sound Energy’s (PSE’s) 25% interest in Colstrip Unit 4, which is… Read More NRC Issues First Subsequent License Renewals, Extends Nuclear Reactor Life to 80 Years […]
Terrestrial Energy’s Integral Molten Salt Reactor (IMSR), a 195-MWe Generation IV nuclear technology, and NuScale’s small modular reactor (SMR) may be the focus of the first joint technical review by U.S. and Canadian nuclear regulators in a bid to boost their regulatory effectiveness as more advanced reactors and SMRs trundle toward commercialization. Rumina Velshi, president […]
In a recent conversation with POWER, GE Digital CEO Pat Byrne discussed why GE made key changes to the lucrative business, streamlining it to focus on four key markets, including electric utilities and power generation. GE has been at the forefront of the innovation in the energy sector since Thomas Edison formulated the essential requirements […]
Marking a major milestone for the U.S. nuclear power sector, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has for the first time issued license renewals that authorize nuclear reactor operation beyond 60 years and up to 80 years. The regulatory body on Dec. 5 issued subsequent license renewals (SLRs) for Units 3 and 4 at Florida Power […]
In a new attempt to secure a concrete role for the international hydropower industry within the decarbonization movement, several utilities, equipment manufacturers, universities, research centers, and consultancies have scaffolded to demonstrate how modern hydropower plants can provide flexibility to markets that are increasingly inundated by variable generation like wind and solar. On Dec. 10, the […]
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has finalized a change to a long-standing policy interpreting “ambient air”—a foundational concept under the Clean Air Act that applies to all types of air pollution, from ground-level ozone, particulate matter, and greenhouse gases. While the agency framed the change as part of a suite of actions to reform New Source […]
China has started up its first commercial nuclear cogeneration system, using two newly operational AP1000 reactors at the Haiyang Nuclear Power Plant to heat 700,000 square meters of housing. Shandong Nuclear Power Co. (SDNPC), a subsidiary of State Power Investment Corp. (SPIC), and owner of the Haiyang plant, on Nov. 15 said the first phase […]
According to experts from Technical University of Applied Sciences (OTH) in Regensburg, Germany, who recently reviewed the world’s existing power-to-gas (P2G) hydrogen and methane projects, about 143 P2G projects have operated since 1988 in 22 countries. Only 56 hydrogen and 38 methanation projects were active in 2019. While the existing fleet mostly comprises pilot or […]
In its November 2019–issued World Energy Outlook, the International Energy Agency (IEA) suggests that if countries pursue currently stated policies, the combined generation share of wind and solar photovoltaic could surge from 7% today to 24% in 2040. This very steep ramp-up of variable renewables will undoubtedly require an emphatic focus on flexibility—the ability of […]
While still in its infancy, power-to-gas provides a promising approach to convert renewable power into “green” hydrogen and methane, furnishing the renewables sector with a potentially lucrative array of
Falling natural gas prices tamped down annual U.S. wholesale power prices over the last decade by $7/MWh to $53/MWh—to a much higher degree compared to the impact of wind and solar growth—a new report from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (LBNL) suggests. The Nov. 20–published report, The Impact of Wind, Solar, and Other Factors on Wholesale Power […]
Testing continues at NET Power for a much-watched project that is demonstrating production of low-carbon natural gas power. The project is using a supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) cycle, and its developer is confident that the technology will be commercially deployed in 2022. Mike McGroddy, principal at 8 Rivers Capital, the venture capitalist firm that is […]
November 21, 2019 Last New York Coal Plant Set to Close The last operating coal-fired power plant in New York state could close by mid-February. Somerset Operating Co. on Nov. 15 asked the New York State Public Service Commission to waive… Read More Regulators: Central Station Generation Will Stay Dominant Despite Emerging Tech A nationwide […]
A bill to amend the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) of 1982 and give the Department of Energy (DOE) the authority to site, build, and operate one or more interim storage sites that would consolidate spent nuclear fuel (SNF) from decommissioned nuclear reactors has passed out of committee and been reported to the full House […]
A nationwide survey of state utility commissions suggests regulators are increasingly grappling with issues that could “profoundly” alter energy delivery and utility business models. However, over the next decade, they expect central station generation will continue to dominate state portfolios, and utility-scale solar growth will surpass customer-owned photovoltaic (PV). The survey to take the “regulatory […]
< !doctype html> November 14, 2019 IEA World Energy Outlook: Solar Capacity Surges Past Coal and Gas by 2040 Solar photovoltaic (PV) could surge ahead of coal and gas and become the largest source of installed power capacity in the world by 2035 if countries pursue stated policies and… Read More One Nuclear Power Project […]
Solar photovoltaic (PV) could surge ahead of coal and gas and become the largest source of installed power capacity in the world in the next two decades if countries pursue stated policies and targets, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its newly released World Energy Outlook 2019 (WEO2019). The agency’s annual publication, which it […]
Twenty-three projects chosen by the Department of Energy (DOE) in response to its 2019 Grid Modernization Lab Call provide a broad look at the critical issues that are roiling the nation’s power sector, as well as the tools and technologies that it has determined will best bolster the grid of the future in the near […]
The 2,250-MW coal-fired Navajo Generating Station (NGS) in Arizona will permanently close likely this week, ending a long and bitter fight to keep the plant and its affiliated coal mine open. The plant’s utility owners—Salt River Project (SRP), Arizona Public Service Co., Tucson Electric Power Co., and NV Energy—in February 2017 voted to shut down […]
< !doctype html> November 7, 2019 New Boosts for Commercial Production of HALEU Advanced Nuclear Reactor Fuel Efforts to commercialize production of high-assay, low-enriched uranium (HALEU) fuel, which is needed for an array of advanced reactors, ramped up this week with two major announcements. As the Department… Read More EPA Proposes Revisions to Two Obama-Era […]
Efforts to commercialize production of high-assay, low-enriched uranium (HALEU) fuel, which is needed for an array of advanced reactors, ramped up this week with two major announcements. As the Department of Energy (DOE) contracted Centrus Energy to demonstrate production of HALEU fuel for advanced reactors at the DOE’s American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon, Ohio, private […]
The pace at which new digitalization technologies are being adopted in the power sector is dizzying, but news from major players in the sector—among them, AES, Invenergy, Google, and IBM—this week suggests it will only accelerate. For more insight into power plant digitalization, including the latest in digital monitoring, diagnostic, analytics, Industrial Internet of Things […]
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued long-awaited proposed revisions of two 2015 Obama-era rules that apply to effluent limitations guidelines (ELGs) for steam electric power plants and coal combustion residuals (CCR) management by electric utilities. The agency coordinated the release of the two related revisions, which apply overwhelmingly to coal-fired steam power plants, after […]
GE will retain its lucrative digital business—not spin it off, as had been planned—but it will sharpen the division’s focus on four key markets, including electric utilities and power generation, GE Digital CEO Pat Byrne told customers in an Oct. 31 letter. “I want to affirm that GE Digital is staying in GE,” Byrne wrote. […]
A historical analysis of nuclear power technology by researchers from the German Institute for Economic Research suggests that none of the 674 reactors developed globally since 1945 were developed based on “economic grounds”—as private investments in the context of a market-based competitive system. Until the 1950s, only four major countries dominated nuclear technology by establishing independent […]