When GenOn Energy (now part of NRG Energy) announced in March 2012 that it would retire the 1950s-era coal-fired Shawville Generating Station in western Pennsylvania—blaming the impending Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS)—the reaction was swift and bitter. “Pragmatic energy policies should not guillotine coal from the nation’s energy grid,” then-state Rep. Bud George, who […]

Nevada utility NV Energy’s net metering program does not significantly impact homeowners without rooftop solar, according to a study prepared for the Nevada Public Utilities Commission (NPUC) this month.  The study was conducted by San Francisco–based Energy and Environmental Economics (E3) at the request of the NPUC after the passage of a Nevada law last […]

After bottoming out at 822 billion cubic feet (Bcf) the week ending Mar. 28—the lowest level since April 2003—U.S. inventories of natural gas in underground storage have risen sharply this summer, though levels remain below recent averages, according to Energy Information Administration (EIA) data. Following a severe winter in which the country burned through a […]

Florida Power & Light (FPL), Florida’s largest utility, announced on June 25 that it was looking to invest directly in natural gas exploration and production as a means of securing future gas supplies and guarding against price volatility. NextEra Energy subsidiary FPL, the largest consumer of gas in the state, has been rapidly expanding its […]

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) head Gina McCarthy said on Tuesday that the agency’s proposed carbon emissions rules are specifically designed to support nuclear plants that are struggling with profitability. In Chicago to campaign for support from business leaders, McCarthy said the agency has focused on about 6% of the nation’s nuclear fleet that is in […]

Power News Current Issue | Find a Job | Post a Job

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is considering the imposition of nationwide reporting requirements for chemicals and mixtures used in fracking operations. On May 19, 2014, the EPA published an Advanced Notice of proposed rulemaking in the Federal Register seeking public input on the development of such a rule, including whether reporting should be mandatory […]

Duke Energy on Monday signed an agreement with the state of North Carolina and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to clean up the Dan River coal ash spill that occurred in February. Significantly, the agreement is financially open-ended in that it does not set a cost cap on the amount Duke must spend to […]

In a major setback for efforts to support demand response, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit threw out Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Order 745, finding that the rule overstepped state authority to regulate retail electricity markets. FERC Order 745, issued in 2011, required the nation’s Independent System Operators (ISOs) […]

Despite relatively low interest in cybersecurity issues among power industry professionals, the threat of cyber attacks on generation systems is real, as the latest report by a U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) group reveals. The January–April report from the Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team (ICS-CERT) notes that the DHS group recently received […]