Business

Iraq signed a memorandum of understanding on October 15 to develop power plants in the country with General Electric (GE). The Financial Times on October 18 said the $15 billion deal was brokered after senior officials in the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump warned Iraq that relations with the U.S. would be threatened if Iraq […]

FirstEnergy on October 18 said its coal-fired Pleasants Power Station in West Virginia will stay open until June 2022, after earlier announcing the plant would close in January of next year. FirstEnergy spokeswoman Jennifer Young said, “Keeping Pleasants in operation … allows the plant to fulfill current capacity obligations and provides additional time for evaluation […]

SEBEWAING, MICH. (October 18, 2018) — As phased decommissioning of coal plants and additional renewables integration into the grid have led to increased variability in the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO)’s wholesale electricity segment, GE’s Distributed Power business (NYSE: GE) and Clarke Energy — GE’s authorized Channel Partner of Jenbacher* gas engines in Michigan — today announced that they […]

Kazakhstan Electricity and Power Market Operator (JSC “KOREM”) summed up the results of the final auction for the construction of renewable energy power plants. According to the results, Hevel Group was awarded a 15-year PPA for the sale of power from a 70-MW solar plant in southern Kazakhstan. Commissioning is planned for 2019-2020. “This tender […]

Utilities are faced with many disruptive changes in the power market. Customers are demanding cleaner energy and turning to distributed generation as a solution. One expert suggested power companies must react and evolve their business models to change with the times. During a keynote presentation at the Distributed Energy Conference in Golden, Colorado, on October […]

Dominion Energy has filed an application to extend the operating licenses for two 45-year-old nuclear reactors at the Surry Power Station through 2052 and 2053—when they will be 80 years old.  Surry’s Unit 1 and 2, located near Newport News, Virginia, are three-loop Westinghouse pressurized water reactors (PWRs) that began operation in December 1972 and […]

The U.S. Senate has cleared a major water infrastructure bill that contains several provisions promoting hydropower development, sending it to the president’s desk. The Senate passed S. 3021, “America’s Water Infrastructure Act of 2018,” on October 10 through a bipartisan vote of 99–1. Because the House of Representatives unanimously passed the bill in a voice […]

American Electric Power (AEP) this week confirmed it will close its coal-fired Conesville Power Plant in Ohio earlier than originally planned. An AEP spokesperson in an email to media confirmed the plant’s workers were told October 5 that the plant will close by May 31, 2020. AEP said Units 5 and 6 at the plant, […]

Colorado-based Westmoreland Coal Co. on October 9 said it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, with the company reporting more than $1.4 billion in debt. The company in its annual financial report in April of this year said it was considering bankruptcy in an effort to protect it from creditors. Westmoreland, which has operated for […]

BADEN, Switzerland (October 9, 2018) — GE Power announced it won the contract to deliver the turbine island equipment for El Dabaa nuclear power plant project in Egypt through AAEM its joint venture with Atomenergomash. GE Power will supply the basic design of four conventional island, supply four nuclear turbine generator sets, including the Arabelle half-speed steam […]

Nearly half of the $2.66 billion spent by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) since 2010 to develop advanced fossil energy technologies was dedicated to nine carbon capture and storage (CCS) demonstration projects—but only three were active at the end of 2017, and only one was at a power plant. In a report prepared for […]

Babcock Power Environmental Inc., a Babcock Power Inc. company, signs Technology Collaboration Agreement with India’s major power generator, BHEL. Chennai, Tamilnadu, India – Babcock Power Environmental Inc. (BPE) announced today that they have entered into a Technology Collaboration Agreement with Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), India’s leading power producer whose equipment account for over 60% […]

Environmental officials in North Carolina say their tests show that coal ash released from Duke Energy’s Sutton power plant in Wilmington during flooding from Hurricane Florence has not had a negative impact on the Cape Fear River. The state’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) on October 4 said its test results on water samples collected […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has issued key safety and design approvals for the Advanced Power Reactor 1400 (APR1400), a South Korean third-generation nuclear reactor design.  The U.S. regulatory body on September 28 issued a final safety evaluation report and a standard design approval (SDA) for the APR1400, which is designed by South Korean state-owned […]

Siemens Gamesa has secured its first order in Russia from Enel Russia, one of the country’s independent power producers (IPP), for the supply of 90 MW of wind turbines. This is the first order for Siemens Gamesa in the country and belongs to the preliminary agreement signed with Enel in 2017 for the supply of […]

ATLANTA, Georgia (October 3, 2018) — Siemens, a global innovator in low and medium voltage technologies, has announced plans to acquire Massachusetts-based Russelectric, a leading U.S. manufacturer of power control systems including paralleling switchgear and automatic transfer switches. The acquisition will bring together the companies’ complementary advanced electrical power portfolios and service organizations to help […]

ATLANTA, Georgia (Oct. 3, 2018) — Siemens is acquiring the specialized software company Electrocon International Inc. (EII) to uniquely enhance simulations of power grids and strengthen the company’s electrical digital twin efforts. EII, based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, develops and markets CAPE (Computer-Aided Protection Engineering) software which focuses on the protection of electricity systems and […]

Natural gas combined cycle, wind, and residential solar photovoltaic technologies may be the least-expensive way to generate power across a wide swathe of the U.S., an interactive map published and recently updated by the University of Texas (UT) at Austin’s Energy Institute shows.  The interactive chart (Version 1.4.0, retrieved on October 4, 2018), first published […]

Industry aggressively fought the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) when the Obama administration proposed it in 2011 and finalized it in February 2012, warning it would precipitate the closure of a swathe of coal capacity nationwide. Six years later, the rule appears to have had a sizable impact on the power sector, but not […]

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) confirmed it has submitted proposed changes to the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) to the White House for review, despite urging by the industry to let the rule stand. EPA spokesperson John Konkus told POWERon October 2 that the agency does not intend to withdraw the existing MATS. It […]

New drawn arc welding technology increases productivity and quality Kennesaw, Georgia, USA, Oct. 03, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Industrial Specialists, a BrandSafway company and a member of the American Welding Society, is introducing BrandTech™ Precision Welding, a modular-welding system with built-in technology, which allows for one or two welding guns to be used at the […]

FREDERICTON (N.B.) – Starting today, users can experience Kognitiv Spark’s powerful industrial worker support tool for free by downloading the trial in the Microsoft app store. Their platform, called RemoteSpark, leverages mixed reality technology and interactive 3D intelligence to deliver significant productivity gains for industrial clients. The platform is currently designed for the Microsoft HoloLens […]

Siemens and Southern Idaho Solid Waste (SISW) recently announced the successful commissioning of two SGE-56HM gas engines that are providing environmentally friendly electrical power for a landfill gas-to-energy project at the Milner Butte Landfill in Burley, Idaho. Siemens’ gas capture engines are helping to convert 1,000 tons of landfill waste daily into energy but SISW […]

DHAKA, Bangladesh (October 1, 2018) — In its continued efforts to provide the most advanced energy solutions to Bangladesh, GE Power (NYSE: GE) today announced that it has been selected by Unique Group, to develop the 600 megawatt (MW) natural gas based combined cycle power plant at Meghnaghat, near Dhaka, Bangladesh. Unique Meghnaghat Power Limited […]

MAN Energy Solutions has won the prestigious ‘Best Paper Award’ at the Power-Gen Asia trade show that took place from September 18th to 20th, 2018 in Jakarta, Indonesia. The ‘Small-Scale LNG – Powering the Future of Asia’s Island Communities’ paper was presented by Carsten Dommermuth, Senior Manager, International Business Development, MAN Energy Solutions. Dommermuth said: […]

GE announced that H. Lawrence Culp Jr. has been named chairman and CEO of the company replacing John Flannery effective immediately. GE’s board of directors voted unanimously on the decision, and it also appointed Thomas W. Horton as lead director. In a press release, GE specifically cited weak performance in the GE Power business for […]

Spurred by the shale gas revolution, natural gas’s stunning rise to dominate the U.S. power profile has been echoed by a number of countries, particularly in the Middle East. In Europe, where domestic natural gas production is actually in decline—and consensus is that shale gas won’t likely play a major role on the continent—natural gas […]

Gasification Plant Under Construction in Saudi Arabia. A Pennsylvania company has partnered with two Saudi Arabian energy firms on construction of a gasification-to-power plant project in Saudi Arabia. The

Built and developed in accordance with the principles of vaastu shastra, this 1.5-GW “mega” gas power plant in India imbues positivity and proactivity into all aspects of plant operation. It has resulted

Advanced digital technologies, including robotics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, are transforming the way electric power companies do business, in ways that benefit the companies and their