Sonal Patel
Articles By

Sonal Patel

  • Hydrogen’s Power Play: What Comes After the Hype

    As hydrogen production scales up, power professionals must weigh where—and when—it fits into a decarbonized grid. For now, experts say real progress may depend on addressing structural bottlenecks: project

  • Alberta’s Deregulated Grid Is Bracing for 11 GW of New Demand

    While Alberta’s historical energy legacy has been defined by coal and crude oil, the Canadian province has embraced renewables and carbon capture over the past two decades, and is now exploring small modular

  • Duke Energy, GE Vernova Strike Major Gas Turbine Deal to Support Explosive Demand Growth

    Duke Energy has signed a sweeping partnership with GE Vernova for the supply of advanced gas turbines and associated equipment—potentially securing up to 11 of GE Vernova’s flagship 7HA units to advance specific projects in line with the utility’s integrated resource plans (IRPs). Duke Energy on April 24 said the “arrangement” would help the company […]

  • The POWER Interview: Mitsubishi Power Talks Turbine Constraints, Data Center Pressures, and Hydrogen Readiness

    As a supplement to POWER’s in-depth April 2025 feature, Gas Power’s Boom Sparks a Turbine Supply Crunch, we’re publishing the full interview with Mitsubishi Power’s Vice President of Business Development for Emerging Technologies, Peter Sawicki. Conducted in March, this Q&A dives deeper into the supply realities underpinning the story: long lead times for gas turbines, […]

  • Peabody Signs Long-Term Coal Deal with Missouri Cooperative AECI

    Peabody Energy, one of the largest producers of thermal coal in the U.S., has signed a major supply agreement with electric cooperative Associated Electric Cooperative Inc. (AECI), committing to deliver between 7 million and 8 million tons of coal annually to fuel two AECI Missouri power plants—the 1.2-GW New Madrid Power Plant and 1.2-GW Thomas […]

  • PJM Taps Google and Tapestry to Use AI for Grid Interconnection Planning

    PJM, the largest grid operator in North America, has launched a multiyear partnership with tech giant Google and its Alphabet X moonshot Tapestry to streamline PJM’s grid interconnection process using artificial intelligence (AI) tools. The companies said the effort could significantly improve planning and decision-making as grid pressures intensify. Under the initiative, announced on April […]

  • POWERnews—April 10, 2025

    POWER Magazine   Jobs   White Papers  Webinars   Events   Store   April 10, 2025 PJM Taps Google and Tapestry to Use AI for Grid Interconnection Planning PJM, the largest grid operator in North America, has launched a multiyear partnership with tech giant Google and its Alphabet X moonshot Tapestry to use artificial intelligence […]

  • Canada Approves First Grid-Scale SMR Construction at Darlington

    The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) has given Ontario Power Generation (OPG) the green light to begin building a 300-MW GE-Hitachi BWRX-300 small modular reactor (SMR) at the Darlington New Nuclear Project (DNNP) site in Clarington, Ontario. The historic approval marks the first time Canada has approved the construction of a grid-scale SMR. The federal […]

  • DOE Allocates First Round of HALEU to Five U.S. Advanced Nuclear Reactor Developers

    In a critical step aimed at bolstering advanced reactor development and their domestic nuclear fuel readiness, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has issued its first round of allocations for high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) under its HALEU Availability Program to five American nuclear developers. On April 9, the DOE said it made conditional commitments to […]

  • POWERnews—April 3, 2025

    POWER Magazine   Jobs   White Papers  Webinars   Events   Store   April 3, 2025 Nation’s Power Operators Warn Congress of a Coming Reliability Shortfall Six major U.S. grid operators have raised a unified alarm about an impending capacity crunch, warning that the pace and scale of explosive demand—including from data centers, manufacturing, and […]

  • Dow and X-energy Advance Landmark Nuclear Project in Texas With Construction Permit Filing

    Advanced reactor developer X-energy and global materials science company Dow have submitted a construction permit application (CPA) to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for a first-of-its-kind small modular reactor (SMR) project at Dow’s Union Carbide Corp. (UCC) Seadrift Operations in Calhoun County, Texas. The filing marks a major step forward for the much-watched commercial-scale […]

  • Nation’s Power Operators Warn Congress of a Coming Reliability Shortfall

    Seven major U.S. grid operators have raised a unified alarm about an impending capacity crunch, warning that the pace and scale of explosive demand—including from data centers, manufacturing, and electrification—pose a precarious misalignment with accelerating generator retirements and transmission constraints. At a March 25 hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy, the […]

  • Gas Power’s Boom Sparks a Turbine Supply Crunch

    Gas power is experiencing a stunning resurgence, driven by soaring electricity demand. But as utilities scramble to secure new capacity, a turbine supply crunch is unfolding, forcing urgent procurement

  • Europe Risks Grid Crisis Without Immediate Action on Dispatchable Power, Group Warns

    Europe’s ambitious push toward carbon neutrality is rapidly replacing fossil fuel–fired power generation with variable renewable resources (VRE), but this shift is exposing the region to a growing risk of

  • POWER Digest [April 2025]

    U.S. Withdraws from Global Clean Energy Partnership. The U.S. has withdrawn from the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP), a 2021-launched financing cooperation mechanism, that seeks to help a selection

  • SEC Ends Defense of Climate Disclosure Rules, Citing Cost and Intrusiveness

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced on March 27 that it will no longer defend its controversial rules requiring companies to disclose climate-related risks, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and governance practices. The decision, approved in a 3-2 vote along party lines, marks a significant shift in the agency’s approach to climate-related financial disclosures. […]

  • Heathrow Airport Transformer Fire Prompts Urgent Inquiry, Exposes Cracks in Grid Resilience

    One week after a catastrophic fire at the North Hyde electrical substation plunged the UK’s flagship Heathrow Airport into chaos, questions are mounting about what went wrong—and what the incident reveals about the vulnerabilities in Britain’s aging power infrastructure. A massive explosion and fire that erupted around 8:20 p.m., on Thursday, March 20, at the […]

  • POWERnews—March 27, 2025

    POWER Magazine   Jobs   White Papers  Webinars   Events   Store   March 27, 2025 DOE Reissues $900M Nuclear SMR Opportunity, Scraps Community Criteria to Focus on Technical Merit The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has reissued a $900 million funding opportunity to accelerate deployment of Generation III+ small modular reactors (SMRs), removing community […]

  • DOE Reissues $900M Nuclear SMR Opportunity, Scraps Community Criteria to Focus on Technical Merit

    The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has reissued a $900 million funding opportunity to accelerate deployment of Generation III+ small modular reactors (SMRs), removing community benefit requirements and shifting the focus solely to technical merit—a move that reflects the Trump administration’s revised energy and industrial priorities. The funding opportunity announcement (FOA)—officially designated DE-FOA-0003485—was first issued […]

  • POWERnews—March 20, 2025

    POWER Magazine   Jobs   White Papers  Webinars   Events   Store   March 20, 2025 How Virtual Power Plants Enhance Grid Operations and Resilience A virtual power plant (VPP) is a network of decentralized, small- to medium-scale power generating units, flexible power consumers, and storage systems that are aggregated and operated as a single… […]

  • PJM Market Challenges Demand Bold Reforms, Experts Warn

    Energy experts have called for bold reforms—from transmission planning to permitting streamlining and faster interconnection approvals—to prevent further volatility and ensure PJM Interconnection meets its reliability mandate without disproportionately burdening consumers. During a March 19 webinar hosted by Advanced Energy United—a trade group that advocates for policies supporting the transition to 100% clean energy—industry experts […]

  • Oklo Advances Siting, On Track for Aurora Nuclear Fast Reactor Deployment at INL in 2027

    Advanced nuclear firm Oklo has signed an Interface Agreement (IAG) with Idaho National Laboratory (INL), marking a key regulatory milestone in the siting and environmental review of its first commercial Aurora powerhouse—a compact passive fast-spectrum reactor—targeted for deployment at INL by late 2027. The IAG with INL—a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)-owned and funded national […]

  • Trump Administration Backs $1.52B Loan for Palisades Nuclear Restart

    The Trump administration has released a second loan disbursement of $56.8 million to Holtec International as part of an up to $1.52 billion loan guarantee for the restart of the 800-MW Palisades Nuclear Plant in Michigan. The funding, a key step in reviving the shuttered facility, reinforces a loan guarantee initially issued under the Biden […]

  • POWERnews—March 13, 2025

    POWER Magazine   Jobs   White Papers  Webinars   Events   Store   March 13, 2025 Trump's EPA Set to Undo Limits on Power Plant Emissions The Trump administration has announced several regulatory rollbacks designed to curb limits on power plant emissions, along with cutting protections for air and water quality. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) […]

  • Tech and Industry Giants Pledge to Triple Global Nuclear Power by 2050

    A coalition of large energy users—including Google, Amazon, Meta, Occidental, and Dow—have pledged their support for tripling global nuclear capacity by 2050. The cross-industry commitment, announced on the sidelines of CERAWeek by S&P Global in Houston, marks the first time large energy users beyond the nuclear sector have collectively backed such an extensive expansion of […]

  • POWERnews—March 6, 2025

    POWER Magazine   Jobs   White Papers  Webinars   Events   Store   March 6, 2025 Lawmakers Scrutinize Power Sector's Future as Surging Demand Raises Alarms In a hearing that underscored the mounting challenges facing the American power sector, industry leaders warned Congress that the nation’s power infrastructure is approaching a precarious juncture as unprecedented […]

  • Lawmakers Scrutinize Power Sector’s Future as Surging Demand Raises Alarms

    In a hearing that underscored the mounting challenges facing the American power sector, industry leaders warned Congress that the nation’s power infrastructure is approaching a precarious juncture as unprecedented demand growth collides with retiring baseload generation. At the House Energy Subcommittee hearing on March 5, titled “Scaling for Growth: Meeting Demand for Reliable, Affordable Electricity,” […]

  • LG&E, KU Propose $3.7B Power Buildout: 1.3 GW of New Gas Plants, $153M Coal Unit Upgrade

    PPL subsidiaries Louisville Gas and Electric Company (LG&E) and Kentucky Utilities Company (KU) have proposed to upgrade environmental controls at a 1974-built coal unit, build two new gas-fired power plants at a combined cost of $2.8 billion, and add 400 MW of battery storage. The measures seek to significantly boost the companies’ capacity to ready […]

  • The SMR Gamble: Betting on Nuclear to Fuel the Data Center Boom

    Data center power demand is accelerating, pushing the grid to its limits and prompting tech giants to bet on next-generation nuclear reactors. But given steep costs, regulatory hurdles, and uncertain

  • THE BIG PICTURE: Power Built with Chinese Capital

    The China Global Power (CGP) Database, developed by Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center, systematically tracks power plants outside of China that are financed through Chinese foreign direct investment and its two major policy banks—the China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China. As of mid-2022, China-backed investments supported 648 power plants across 171.6 […]