Business

Consider state clean energy funds as potential replacement funding sources for future clean energy projects.

Three South Korean Firms Opt for MHI’s J-Series Turbines. Japanese firms Marubeni Corp. and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) on March 22 said they had been jointly awarded orders for three large-scale combined cycle electric power projects in Korea totaling 3,800 MW. The plants are the 950-MW 2nd Pyeongtaek Combined Cycle Power Plant, the 1,900-MW Dongducheon […]

Unpredictable periods of operation are one of the disadvantages of wind and solar technologies. If there were an economic means of storing the energy from the time of production to the time of demand, the value of renewable energy sources would greatly increase. Here are some ideas for how to bridge that gap.

CSP Giants Form Alliance. Concentrating solar power companies Abengoa, BrightSource Energy, and Torresol Energy in early March formed the Concentrating Solar Power Alliance, an organization dedicated to educating U.S. regulators, utilities, and grid operators about the unique benefits of concentrating solar power (CSP) and of thermal energy storage. The U.S. has more than 500 MW […]

Do you have professional insights to share with others in the industry—or questions for those with a particular expertise? Do you want to get news and information from POWER more than monthly or weekly? Then join POWER on these social media platforms.

Planning for resource adequacy—something that was relatively simple in the context of vertically integrated utilities—continues to be a difficult issue in competitive electricity markets. Whereas state public utility commissions used to have exclusive authority to determine what generation needed to be built and when it was to be available, this responsibility has been assumed by RTO/ISOs in regions with competitive markets. Each region approaches resource planning differently, and each region faces unique problems.

Several new models of plug-in electric vehicles will enter the market in 2012, joining the Nissan LEAF and Chevrolet Volt. The Edison Electric Institute has prepared four suggestions to help utilities smoothly handle the introduction of these vehicles to roads and grids.

Progress Energy has adopted an emergency worker callout program that has eliminated manual dialing, improved work acceptance rates, and increased the speed of worker reporting. The standardized process also complies with union work rules that require equality in overtime opportunities, by seniority. The business case for automating the worker callout process is compelling.

A year has passed since Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant was destroyed by earthquake and tsunami. What is the economic price Japan must pay?

Chinese state entity State Grid Corp. of China (SGCC) and battery maker BYD in January said they had finished construction on what they call “the world’s largest battery energy storage station”—a project in Zhangbei, Hebei Province that combines 100 MW of wind and 40 MW of solar capacity, a smart power transmission system, and 36 MWh of energy storage in arrays “larger than a football field.”

Putting more money and effort into information and information technology will pay solid returns when it comes to understanding and adapting to the world around us, including our changing climate.

A new project planned by RWE and partners Nexans, the Karlsruhe Institute for Technology (KIT), and Jülich is poised to mark another milestone for high-temperature superconductor (HTS) cable technology, which transports electricity without losses when cooled down to about –200C (–392F).

The energy trading business is changing as Wall Street adjusts to the requirements of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. What does that mean to you?

The ambitious Desertec project—a $9 billion initiative to develop, harness, and transmit 2,000 MW of renewable power from North Africa and the Middle East to Europe by 2050—has been trumped by a vaster concept that spans Asia and Australia.

Is your organization being held back by a “server hugger?”

RusHydro Inaugurates New Unit at Restored Sayano-Shushenskaya Hydropower Plant. RusHydro —a hydroelectricity company that is majority-owned by the Russian Federation—announced in mid-December that it had put its first brand new hydropower unit into commercial operation at its Sayano-Shushenskaya hydropower plant on the Yenisei River, near Sayanogorsk in the Republic of Khakassia. Following the catastrophic accident […]

Eliminating the negative and accentuating the positive in the workplace. Here’s the roadmap.

The Philippine Coal Plant Users’ Group (PCPUG), the leading nonprofit organization involved in generating electricity in the Philippines, recently held a conference introducing its mission and vision.

The EU has poured billions of dollars in support of the development of wind and solar projects over the past decade. Have the Europeans now lost their appetite for all things green?

A universal reality for U.S. power generation developers is the challenge of obtaining funding in today’s tight credit markets.

For the past 15 years, Vietnam has enjoyed enviable gross domestic product increases, averaging 7% annually. That kind of economic growth increases power demand, but financing new capacity remains a challenge. Reaching its ambitious capacity growth goals will require Vietnam to expand its financing and vendor base, attract foreign investment, and ensure future fuel supplies in a region thick with competition for those resources.

ANDRITZ to Rebuild Oldest Egyptian Nile Dam. Austrian firm ANDRITZ HYDRO on Dec. 22 won a $138.4 million contract from the Egyptian Ministries of Energy and Water Resources for the supply and installation of four bulb turbines, generators, and the electrical and hydro-mechanical equipment to rebuild the Assiut barrage—the oldest dam in the Egyptian section […]

Synovus relies on emergency standby generator sets to prevent any loss of services or data in the event of a utility outage.

Brazil’s power industry has long been dominated by its vast hydro resources, which historically have accounted for over 80% of the country’s generation capacity. With engineering marvels like the massive Itaipú dam and the proposed Belo Monte project, the country is a leader in the development and use of hydroelectricity on a grand scale. But as the 2001 energy crisis proved, dependence on a single source leaves the country vulnerable to severe shortages. Thanks to government programs designed to take advantage of the country’s favorable climate, Brazil is committed to diversifying its energy mix while continuing to maintain a renewable energy focus.

After more than a decade debating whether to pass a carbon-limiting law, Australia’s Senate in November voted in a landmark bill that will impose a price on carbon emissions. The country, which accounts for just 1.5% of global carbon emissions, but which is the world’s highest emitter per capita because 80% of its power comes […]

The world’s steel industry is power-hungry. Using energy both to supply heat and power for plant operations and as a raw material for the production of blast furnace coke, the sector uses a major fraction of the world’s total energy consumption. China’s steel and iron sectors have been mushrooming on the back of skyrocketing demand, […]

There is a fine line between personnel management and intruding into the personal lives of employees. Staying on the right side of that line is challenging, particularly when prior legal decision are mixed.

Swift technology developments in the power sector and increasingly sophisticated security threats have prompted regional transmission organization PJM Interconnection to switch from its aging centrally dispatched legacy system to two “state-of-the-art” primary control centers as part of its $200 million Advanced Control Center (AC2) program. The grid operator that serves parts of the Eastern Interconnection […]

As the resource gets increased and more sophisticated scrutiny, natural gas from shale looks increasingly like a revolutionary force in energy markets. Most recently, the Washington-based environmental and energy think tank Resources for the Future rolled out a serious analysis of the new method of developing gas, and the issues it presents. The preliminary results look very positive for gas.

South Korea, China Poised to Make Colossal Investments in Wind Power. South Korea, a nation that recently announced it would spend 1 trillion won ($884 million) on feed-in tariffs for wind and solar projects, on Nov. 10 said it planned to invest 10.2 trillion won ($9 billion) in a 2.5-GW offshore wind farm that could […]