Business

How much will a smart grid cost? It’s a question that has gained importance in light of massive cost overruns for one highly touted U.S. project.

Water and gas provide the energy for Peru’s power generation sector, and the country could generate considerably more, especially from hydro and wind. While the nation strives to extend electricity service to all its citizens, it’s also looking beyond its borders for potential future customers.

China’s nuclear power plant building spree got a little more frenzied this January, as the country kicked off its 21st project at Ningde 3.

Ensuring an adequate supply of rare earth elements and minerals may be a hurdle in the renewable energy supply chain. The metals and their compounds are used in battery technologies, windmills, catalysts, and communications technologies. Add lithium (not a rare earth) to that mix, as Latin American politics could cloud the prospects for new lithium supplies.

What do Gmail, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook have in common? All are examples of cloud computing. All present serious data security challenges.

Although law varies by jurisdiction, a recent case demonstrates arbitration panels’ willingness to uphold liquidated damages clauses in power plant engineering, procurement, and construction contracts.

Just one person behaving badly at work can send company morale into a downward spiral. It’s time to call out those morale-and-productivity-busting personalities so managers can spot them and steer clear of the mess they make.

Wind generating capacity hit new highs in 2009, but that didn’t mean much for the wind power manufacturing sector, meaning fewer “green” jobs than the Obama administration hoped to see.

Given delays and cancellations of new generating capacity, pushing the existing power generation fleet is more important than ever. At ELECTRIC POWER 2009, multiple presentations explored the premise that an active knowledge management strategy — requiring a blend of digital and human elements unique to each power plant — will help you extract the most productivity from your assets.

It’s a digital world, and even aging power plants are experiencing the benefits of digital controls technologies. The following cover stories provide insight into the latest options and inspiration for your own plant controls projects.

Biofuels projects present a variety of risks in today’s business climate that must be mitigated or hedged in order for project financing to proceed. With the contraction in the capital markets, credit quality has become increasingly important.

Instead of just forgetting about their trash when they leave it at the curb, people increasingly are recognizing that municipal solid waste is a valuable resource. For more than 25 years, Covanta Energy has viewed waste as an important resource not to be thrown away. Waste materials have a tremendous amount of potential energy. Waste materials in landfills release significant amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Recycling and Energy-from-Waste (EfW) together, as part of an integrated waste management approach, make the best use of this resource, reducing our greenhouse gas emissions while turning waste into steam to heat our homes and businesses and electricity to power our cities and towns.

With everything from baby food to SUVs (hybrids of course!) competing for “green mindshare,” audiences are inundated with a barrage of green claims. Although environmental awareness is at an all-time high, a growing sense of skepticism has crept into the conversation. Whereas even a couple of years ago audiences eagerly gobbled up green claims, people today are more uncertain and retain a higher degree of doubt when confronted with messages of sustainability and environmental stewardship.

Over the past three decades, the Brazilian sugarcane industry has experienced major and continuous technological improvement. Today, sugarcane is the basic input for an extraordinarily diverse range of value-added products including food, animal feed, chemicals, biofuels and electricity coming from modern, integrated biorefineries that produce sugar, ethanol, bioelectricity and bioplastics in Brazil.

The support of energy savings performance contracts helps customers achieve goals.

The federal government is the largest single user of energy in the United States. Energy efficiency is the cleanest, cheapest and fastest source of energy. Put the two together and you have the Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP).

Renewable and reliable alternative energy is a critical need as the world’s oil supplies are depleted. Using its globally renowned expertise in engineering and systems integration, Lockheed Martin is successfully pioneering new ways to leverage solar, wind, and wave energy as alternatives to fossil fuels.

District heating in Denmark was developing in the same manner as in other countries before the energy crisis hit the western countries in 1973/74. However, by the beginning of the 21st century, the Danish energy consumption per capita for space heating had dropped more than 50% compared to 1973.

Owing to visionary environmental and energy policies combined with coherent public planning, Denmark has developed the most efficient waste management system in Europe.

Many representatives and advisors of renewable energy businesses believe (or at least hope) that 2010 will witness a significant “uptick” in merger and acquisition (M&A) activity across all renewable energy industries. As renewable energy businesses continue to attract funding and benefit from favorable governmental policies (or, conversely, as funding slows down or governmental policies change), such businesses should be in a position to attract suitors and/or explore growth opportunities. To the extent you are looking for or experience M&A opportunities, below are a few “M&A Truths.”

ACORE is pleased to partner with EarthEra to balance the carbon emissions of this year’s conference. EarthEra is an innovative new program from NextEra Energy Resources, North America’s largest producer of wind and solar power. The EarthEra program provides a powerful new way for everyone, from large organizations to individual consumers to reduce their carbon footprint and help build a clean energy future. 100% of revenue received by EarthEra is directed to the EarthEra Renewable Energy Trust and used to build new renewable energy facilities.

U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced last week that the DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) will invest up to $12 million in total funding ($10 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) in four companies to support the development of early-stage solar energy technologies and help them advance to full commercial scale. The goal of this effort is to help further expand a clean energy economy and make solar energy more cost-competitive with conventional forms of electricity.

Efficient transport plays a crucial role in the development of society and its economy and, in many respects, commercial transport solutions are the lifeblood of the economy. At the same time, transportation has a negative impact on society, not least in the form of emissions and congestion. "The key is to strengthen the positive aspects of the transport system while working to combat the negative ones," says Stefan Lorentzson, President of Volvo Group North America. "The Volvo Group is continually developing new engine technologies which reduce emissions and increase fuel efficiency."

The RES Alliance for Jobs is a coalition of businesses and organizations that support Congressional enactment of a strong federal renewable energy standard (RES). The group’s members include companies and associations representing the wind, solar, biomass, waste-to-energy and hydro power business lines. The Alliance seeks to demonstrate that a strong RES would create sustainable growth in the renewable energy industries, enabling manufacturers to invest billions of dollars in the U.S. economy and create hundreds of thousands of high-quality American jobs that cannot be outsourced.

One day before the Copenhagen climate change summit was scheduled to end, negotiations had deadlocked. Developing nations led by China were demanding that rich countries pledge as much as $200 billion a year to help them cope with drought, rising sea levels and other ravages of global warming already afflicting some of the poorest countries on Earth. For its part, the United States was insisting on international verification of carbon emission reductions, a condition anathema to China but viewed as essential to gain Congress’ approval.

With the eighth-largest economy in the world, Brazil has a clear need for power, but balancing supply and demand has proven tricky in recent decades. Even in a country where over 80% of generation capacity comes from renewables, planning for future capacity additions isn’t straightforward or easy.

News items of interest to power generation professionals.

After years of decline amid rising prices and fears of scarcity, natural gas as a power-generating fuel is on a rebound in the U.S., driven by new finds in Texas and the Mid-Atlantic states. These news stories highlight the trend.

Natural gas has reemerged as the choice for new electric generation, according to the North American Electric Reliability Corp. Does this raise new reliability issues?

An economist scratches his head in consternation as he looks at the discussion about climate change and energy conservation. Take his quiz to learn why commonly accepted assumptions make poor economic sense.

The U.S. isn’t producing the workforce it needs for the future of energy generation. And forget about “green jobs,” an undefined concept.