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.
Power News Don't miss these POWER magazine resources: Post Jobs | View Jobs | Buyers' Guide Electric Co-ops Launch “Community Storage” Initiative Electric cooperatives are poised to increase their use of electric water heaters as a demand response (DR) and energy storage tool in their service territories.&hellips; Read More Advertisement Over 150 Million Tubes […]
A national action plan issued by the White House seeks to take near-term actions to enhance cybersecurity awareness and protections, including investing more than $19 billion in resources for cybersecurity. The Cybersecurity National Action Plan (CNAP) announced on February 9 is the “capstone” of more than seven years of efforts by the Obama administration to tackle […]
Duke Energy is considering the sale of all or most of its international power plants, about 4,400 MW dispersed throughout Central and South America. The company’s international business segment, Duke Energy International (DEI), was forced to make the disclosure in light of a required statement from its Brazilian subsidiary, Duke Energy International, Geração Paranapanema S.A. […]
Canadian utility Fortis wants to acquire ITC Holdings Corp., the largest independent electric transmission company in the U.S., to benefit from “low-risk” regulated power markets. The deal valued at about $11.3 billion will allow Fortis to enter the U.S. regulated power market overseen by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), providing a “unique, highly diversified, […]
Power News Don't miss these POWER magazine resources: Post Jobs | View Jobs | Buyers' Guide EPA, DOE Experts Upbeat on Regulatory Agenda The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) acting administrator of the Office of Air and Radiation, and the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) head of clean coal and carbon management gave upbeat assessments of the […]
Mississippi Power’s lignite-fired Kemper County integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power plant is seeing yet another delay and $110 million in new costs, a filing with state regulators shows. The company’s December 2015 monthly status report for the nation’s first commercial power plant that will capture and store carbon dioxide anticipates that it will now […]
Following rigorous safety checks, Kansai Electric Power Co. on February 1 restarted a unit that uses a uranium-plutonium mixed oxide (MOX) fuel at its Takahama nuclear plant in Japan’s Fukui prefecture. The unit is the third restarted in Japan since the country’s Nuclear Regulation Agency (NRA) idled all reactors and began safety checks in the […]
The New York State Public Service Commission on January 21 approved a 10-year, $5 billion Clean Energy Fund that is expected to address climate change and strengthen resiliency in the face of extreme weather. It will also bolster Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s aggressive Clean Energy Standard, which calls for the state to meet 50% of its […]
The historic winter storm that buried the Eastern U.S. in snow over the weekend shut the lights off for more than a million customers from Arkansas to Massachusetts as it downed power lines and hampered operations at some power plants. According to the Department of Energy’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, at one […]
Power News Don't miss these POWER magazine resources: Post Jobs | View Jobs | Buyers' Guide Halt the EPA’s Clean Power Plan Now, 26 States Urge Supreme Court Following the D.C. Circuit's denial of motions for stay, 26 states, a number of trade associations, and a coalition of utilities have petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court […]
Following the D.C. Circuit’s denial of motions for stay, 26 states have petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to immediately block the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) contentious Clean Power Plan from taking effect. The January 26 application, directed to Chief Justice John Roberts Jr., notes that the states filed petitions for review of the carbon rule […]
Congressional efforts to block the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) contentious rule asserting federal authority over small bodies of water were derailed on Jan. 21. Senate Republicans voted 52–40, failing to override the president’s veto of the so-called “Clean Water Rule”—also “Waters of the United States” (or WOTUS) well short of the 60 necessary votes. Clean […]
A federal court has denied the motions for stay requested by 27 states and numerous industry groups to block the Clean Power Plan from taking effect. “Petitioners have not satisfied the stringent requirements for a stay pending court review,” the court said in its two-page order on January 21. The court also ordered that consideration of the […]
Power News Don't miss these POWER magazine resources: Post Jobs | View Jobs | Buyers' Guide Calpine to Take Uneconomic CCGT Plant Offline in Calif. Calpine Corp. will idle a 578-MW natural gas–fired combined cycle (CCGT) power plant in northern California for likely the remainder of the year. The Houston-headquartered company told POWER on January […]
Entergy has asked a federal court to invalidate a November 6 New York state (NYS) objection to a certification needed for the 20-year license extension of its Indian Point nuclear facilities by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The state’s Department of State (DOS) claimed in its decision that Entergy’s twin nuclear reactors, which supply nearly 25% […]
Calpine Corp. will idle a 578-MW natural gas–fired combined cycle (CCGT) power plant in northern California for likely the remainder of the year. The Houston-headquartered company told POWER on January 15 that it will put the 2001-built Sutter Energy Center in Yuba City in “cold layup.” That means that while will the plant will not […]
A new grid modernization blueprint released by the Department of Energy (DOE) on January 14 seeks to integrate conventional and renewable power sources with energy storage and efficiency measures, while ensuring the grid is resilient against cyberattacks and climate change threats. The DOE said that the plan will help “frame new grid architecture design elements, […]
Power News Don't miss these POWER magazine resources: Post Jobs | View Jobs | Buyers' Guide Terrorist Drones Could Pose Threat to Nuclear Plants Advanced drones capable of carrying sophisticated imaging equipment and significant payloads pose a serious threat to nuclear power plants and other high-profile targets, says a report released on Jan. 11 by […]
Wholesale power prices across the nation plunged between 27% and 37% at major trading hubs last year compared to 2014, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported. The agency said on January 11 that the drop was driven largely by lower natural gas prices. Natural gas spot prices in 2015 at the Henry Hub averaged $2.61 […]
Energy and environment issues have figured prominently in past State of the Union (SOTU) addresses. Here’s a look back at President Obama’s previous speeches. See what Obama said in his final SOTU speech on January 12. 2010: Nuclear Gets the Spotlight In his very first State of the Union address, President Obama called for incentives […]
In his final State of the Union (SOTU) address on January 12, and arguably less so than in any other address he has given over the last seven years, President Obama made sparse mention of energy and climate change. The president dedicated most of the energy references in his address to “clean” energy, encapsulating wind […]
Power News Don't miss these POWER magazine resources: Post Jobs | View Jobs | Buyers' Guide Vogtle Expansion Owners, Contractors, Settle All Claims Georgia Power (GP) announced on Jan. 4 that the owners of the expansion project at the Vogtle nuclear power plant (GP, Oglethorpe Power Corp., the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia, and Dalton […]
Malware has apparently been used for the first time to prompt a large-scale power blackout. An attack was tied to a Dec. 23 blackout affecting about 1.4 million Ukrainians living in the Ivano-Frankivsk region, reported Ukrainian news media outlet TSN. However, Slovakian information security firm ESET later confirmed that the reported case “was not an […]
From issuance of the final Clean Power Plan to mammoth mergers, 2015 will be remembered as a tumultuous year. Twelve months ago, as folks were emerging from an eventful 2014, POWER made some bold predictions, including that fuel economics will drive 2015 U.S. power markets, and the labor crunch will complicate the gas turbine arms […]
POWER‘s monthly infographic sheds light on power sector trends globally, and in 2015, it highlighted changes in plant retirements, sector revenues, rule costs, workforce, emissions technologies, and electricity costs, among other subjects. January 2015: Baseload Retirements How coal plant retirements compare with retirements of other baseload generation sources. February 2015: Power Revenues How revenues for fossil power […]
Power News Don't miss these POWER magazine resources: Post Jobs | View Jobs | Buyers' Guide A Look Back at 2015: An Electric Year From issuance of the final Clean Power Plan to mammoth mergers, 2015 will be remembered as a tumultuous year. Twelve months ago, as folks were emerging from an eventful 2014, POWER […]
Texas is the latest state to file suit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over its recently finalized standards for ozone. The state joins Arizona, Arkansas, Kentucky, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wisconsin, which have legally challenged the final version of the EPA’s National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for ozone since its […]
Power News Don't miss these POWER magazine resources: Post Jobs | View Jobs | Buyers' Guide D.C. Circuit Leaves MATS Rule In Place as EPA Tackles Cost Consideration The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) will remain in effect as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) works on a final cost finding, the U.S. Court of […]
North America’s reserve margins are trending downward, even though electricity demand has generally fallen, the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) warned in a new report. The international regulatory authority established to gauge and improve the reliability of North America’s bulk power system (BPS) said in its annual long-term report that electricity demand has dropped […]
The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) will remain in effect as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) works on a final cost finding, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ordered on Dec. 15. The court noted in a two-page order that the EPA “has represented that it is on track to issue […]