April 18, 2019 Federal Court Vacates Parts of Obama EPA’s ELG Rule  In a legal victory for environmental groups, a federal court has vacated key portions of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) November 2015-promulgated effluent limitations guidelines (ELGs) for steam electric power… Read More Sponsored Content Piping Solutions Using Non-Welded Connections For hydropower and dams, […]

In a legal victory for environmental groups, a federal court has vacated key portions of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) November 2015-promulgated effluent limitations guidelines (ELGs) for steam electric power plants, deeming them “unlawful.”  The decision adds a dramatic new element of uncertainty in timing of the rule, which the Trump administration has said it […]

In a significant technical triumph, GE has completed first installation of a new gas-fired power plant technology that it says can reduce nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions to 5 parts per million (ppm).  GE on April 11 completed combustion upgrades on nine GE 9E gas turbines at five power generation enterprises in Shenzen, a major industrial […]

Only months after ABB announced Hitachi would acquire a majority stake in its flagship power grids business for $11 billion, the company’s board of directors ousted CEO Ulrich Spiesshofer and officially launched a search for a new leader.  The Zurich-based technology giant said on April 17 that the board of directors and Spiesshofer “mutually agreed […]

The U.S. Supreme Court’s refusal to reconsider industry-led challenges to state nuclear subsidy programs in New York and Illinois leaves the contentious matter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).  The high court on April 15 declined to accept petitions for review of decisions by the Second Circuit and Seventh Circuit, dealing a major blow […]

April 11, 2019 PJM Will Hold Capacity Auction Under Current Rules in August PJM Interconnection said it will hold its 2022–2023 capacity auction under current market rules on Aug. 14, 2019, though the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has yet to issue a… Read More Sponsored Content Piping Solutions Using Non-Welded Connections For hydropower and […]

Legislation recently introduced in the U.S. House that would expand the federal solar investment tax credit (ITC) to energy storage technologies has gained the backing of major trade groups  representing the solar, hydropower, and wind sectors. The Energy Storage Tax Incentive and Deployment Act (H.R. 2096), introduced on April 4 by Reps. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.), […]

Construction activity on wind projects across the U.S. surged to a record level of more than 20 GW in the third quarter of 2018, and about 35.1 GW of new wind capacity was under construction or in advanced development at the end of 2018, according to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA).  In 2018, the […]

Cybersecurity firm FireEye has uncovered and is responding to a new intrusion at an unnamed critical infrastructure facility that it suggests in an April 10 blog post was perpetrated by the group behind the TRITON attack, which prompted a process shutdown at a Middle Eastern facility in 2017. But while details of the new attack are sparse, […]

PJM Interconnection said it will hold its 2022–2023 capacity auction under current market rules on Aug. 14, 2019, though the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has yet to issue a decision on the grid operator’s plan to revamp its Minimum Offer Price Rule (MOPR). In an April 10 filing, however, PJM asked FERC to clarify that […]

Despite years of escalating natural disasters and dozens of reports examining the science and economic cost of climate change, the Green New Deal framework now languishes as a result of political backlash and its outsize ambition to remake the American economy. But dismissing the issue, and this opportunity, is unnecessary and dangerous.

The world’s first complete advanced nuclear fuel test assemblies containing accident-tolerant fuel (ATF) have been installed at Southern Co.’s Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant’s Unit 2 in Georgia.  Nuclear giant Framatome delivered four GAIA lead fuel assemblies containing enhanced ATF (EATF), including both pellets and cladding, to the plant owned by Georgia Power in […]

April 4, 2019 How the DOE Is Looking to Save Hydropower The Department of Energy (DOE) unveiled a slate of measures to help U.S. hydropower thrive as costs for wind and solar plummet. Measures will include a roadmap to identify hydro’s… Read More Sponsored Content Get Ahead of the Varnish Problem The easiest problem to […]

Coal combustion was responsible for more than 0.3 degrees C of the 1-degree C surge in global average annual surface temperatures above pre-industrial levels—and that makes coal the single largest source of the global temperature increase, the International Energy Agency (IEA) says in a new report.  The finding, outlined in the IEA’s Global Energy & […]

The Department of Energy (DOE) unveiled a slate of measures to help U.S. hydropower thrive as costs for wind and solar plummet. Measures will include a roadmap to identify hydro’s value in a future grid, and a first-of-its-kind prize designed to encourage innovative and faster pumped storage construction techniques. In her opening speech at Waterpower […]

Cyber-attacks on industrial control systems (ICSs) are no longer a hypothetical. As pieced together by the Wall Street Journal, in 2017, Russian hackers attacked a small construction company, exploiting the organization’s connections with utilities and government agencies. Through an integrator, the hackers accessed computer-network credentials, giving them the ability to get into computer systems that […]

A project to demonstrate a novel power cycle that promises to produce low-cost, reliable, and flexible power from natural gas—while generating no atmospheric emissions, and fully capturing carbon dioxide—is inching closer to commissioning. Its developers are now actively assessing siting for the first commercial-scale 300-MW NET Power facility. NET Power’s 50 MWth Demonstration Plant in La […]

While conventional power plant cycles produce power from turbines using water or steam as the working fluid, supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) cycles use CO2 that is in a supercritical state—at a temperature and pressure above its critical point where liquid and gas phases are not distinguishable.  CO2 has a relatively low critical pressure of 7.4 megapascal […]

A wide-ranging bill introduced by a large group of bipartisan U.S. senators on March 27 seeks to cement the role advanced nuclear reactors will play in the nation’s future power mix.  The “Nuclear Energy Leadership Act” (NELA), aims to “reestablish U.S. leadership in nuclear energy,” which has been lost to state-sponsored development in Russia and […]

March 28, 2019 Trump Acts on Critical Infrastructure Resiliency Against EMP Threats President Trump has signed an executive order (EO) to boost coordination for and national resilience against electromagnetic pulse (EMP) threats—both from nuclear warfare and natural events like solar superstorms. The action… Read More Sponsored Content ELECTRIC POWER 2019 is Next Month! POWER, the single […]

The Department of Energy (DOE) is funding a project that would prepare Westinghouse’s 25-MWe eVinci micro-reactor for nuclear demonstration readiness by 2022.  The agency on March 27 said it will provide $12.9 million of the estimated $28.6 million Westinghouse needs for a project to prepare the micro-reactor for a demonstration, including for design, analysis, licensing […]

President Trump has signed an executive order (EO) to boost coordination for and national resilience against electromagnetic pulse (EMP) threats—both from nuclear warfare and natural events like solar superstorms. The action suggests new federal mandates to protect critical infrastructure against EMP events and attacks may be on the horizon.  Senior Trump administration officials from the National Security […]

Siemens, Three Mile Island, and Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) made notable headlines over recent days. Here is this week’s POWER notebook.  Siemens Bags First Order for 41-MW Aeroderivative Gas Unit Siemens on March 25 said it received its first order for its newest aeroderivative gas turbine offering—the SGT-A45. The buyer, Bayat Power, a subsidiary […]

After a Navajo tribal council on March 21 voted 11–9 to block acquisition of the Navajo Generating Station (NGS) and Peabody Energy’s Kayenta coal mine, the Navajo Transitional Energy Co. (NTEC) announced it would drop its bid to keep the 2.3-GW coal-fired plant near Page, Arizona, open.  NTEC, a company wholly owned by the Navajo […]

March 21, 2019 Trump Administration Set to Guarantee $3.7 Billion to Finish Vogtle Nuclear Expansion Energy Secretary Rick Perry will reportedly announce March 22 that the Trump administration will finalize $3.7 billion in loan guarantees to support completion of the Vogtle nuclear plant construction project.… Read More Sponsored Content ELECTRIC POWER 2019 is Next Month! […]

Renewable generation in the U.S. has doubled over the past 10 years. In 2018, generation from solar, wind, hydro, and other renewables soared to a record 742 TWh—or 17.6% of total U.S. generation. According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), since 2008—when renewables provided 382 TWh—wind generation rose from 55 TWh and generated 275 TWh […]

Norsk Hydro, a major global aluminum producer that is also Norway’s third-largest producer of hydropower, has been stricken by an extensive cyberattack—reportedly ransomware—that forced its entire global network offline. The company powers its sizable aluminum production operations with 20 hydropower plants concentrated in Telemark, Røldal-Suldal, Sogn, and Vennesla, producing a total 10 TWh per year. […]

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators are urging the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to withdraw a proposed rule that they said could “lead to the undoing” of the Obama administration’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS).  In a March 18 letter to newly appointed EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler, the group led by Sens. Lamar Alexander […]

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), the Japanese utility that took on the behemoth task of controlling and decommissioning the six-unit Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima prefecture after the March 11, 2011, accident, recently released a video showing progress at the site.  Source: https://www4.tepco.co.jp/en/news/library/archive-e.html?video_uuid=t820ghcq&catid=61795 The disaster began as a 15-meter (49-foot) tsunami inundated and disabled the […]

March 7, 2019 States Take Lead with Plans for 100% Carbon-Free Energy Minnesota and Wisconsin recently joined the list of states aiming for a 100% clean-energy future, while some Illinois lawmakers are pushing for not only carbon-free power, but also 100% renewable… Read More ERCOT Warns of Intensified Summer Supply Crunch (UPDATED) Grappling with a […]