Business

News items of interest to power industry professionals.

High-temperature superconducting cables deliver up to 10 times as much power as conventional electric power transmission cables. They are poised to help to reduce grid congestion as well as installation and operating costs.

Compliance with reliability standards has moved beyond the "check the box" phase to one of regulations with real deliverables and fines for noncompliance. Utilities that aren’t vigorously evaluating and refining their compliance procedures today may find NERC’s 2009 audit cycle much more challenging.

An energy-generating revolving door installed at Driebergen-Zeist railway station in the Netherlands is the latest experiment in eco-building. Dutch company Royal Boon Edam Group Holdings designed the manual door to match the newly refurbished station’s sustainable technology theme, while keeping in mind that the station — converted into a multifunctional area featuring restaurants and a tourist information and visitor center — holds 8,500 commuters at capacity.

Following a press briefing this morning, President Barack Obama signed new executive orders intended to spur “swift action” on both U.S. economic recovery and American energy independence.

Most forecasting reports concentrate on political or regulatory events to predict future industry trends. Frequently overlooked are the more empirical performance trends of the principal power generation technologies. Solomon & Associates queried its many power plant performance databases and crunched some numbers for us to identify those trends.

Courtesy: Platts Data source: Platts Energy Advantage and POWERmap. All rights reserved.

News items of interest to power industry professionals. GE Hitachi Nuclear Trade Delegation to India Postponed. In late November, GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) announced that its president and CEO, Jack Fuller, would lead a 50-member U.S. trade mission to India Dec. 2–9. It was to be the first civilian nuclear energy delegation to visit […]

The U.S. power industry’s story in 2009 will be all about change, to borrow a now-familiar theme. Though the new administration’s policy specifics hadn’t been revealed as POWER editors prepared this report, it appears that flat load growth in 2009 will give the new administration a unique opportunity to formulate new energy policy without risking that the lights will go out.

The power industry will be challenged in the coming year to chart its strategic direction and meet investor expectations, although business conditions should take a turn for the better going into 2010.

Concern about the shortage of skilled workers for the energy industry has grown considerably over the past few years. Most discussions have focused on the shortage of engineers, but recently concerns about the scarcity of technical crafts have arisen as well.

Two days before Christmas, the Federal Appeals Court for the District of Columbia reinstated (PDF) the Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR) while the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) makes changes to it. Judge Judith W. Rogers said, "The parties’ persuasive demonstration, extending beyond short-term health benefits to impacts on planning by states and industry with respect to […]

In the past two days, numerous news outlets have reported that president-elect Barack Obama will nominate Nobel Prize winner Steven Chu, director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, to become the next secretary of energy. If he is officially announced and then confirmed, Chu will become the 12th individual to lead the Department of Energy. Do you remember the 11 who preceded him, starting in 1977?

Call it the "trillion dollar conundrum." Really big money is needed to equip the U.S. transmission system to handle a variety of new requirements and increased load, but it isn’t clear how to raise it, spend it, or recover it. Expect new renewables projects to die on the vine until the gridlock loosens.

An historic election is over and the people have spoken. President-elect Obama and an expanded congressional majority will now rebalance the economic and environmental importance of coal-fired generation in this country differently than ever before, and that change is unsettling to many. When the expected costs of the anticipated new policies are counted, I predict many voters will experience a severe case of buyer’s remorse.

News items of interest to power industry professionals. Economic slowdown delays Canadian IGCC plant, kills W.Va. coal-to-liquids plant. Canadian firm Alter NRG announced in late October that it would shift its corporate focus from internally led project development to technology sales, in response to the global economic slowdown and turbulent capital markets. Among the projects […]

This summary of power generation projects is a web-only supplement to the November 2008 special report titled “Whistling in the dark: Inside South Africa’s power crisis.”

Eskom’s cautionary tale should remind those involved in the power industry anywhere in the world that past performance is not a guarantee of future success.

On Sept. 12, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and California Energy Commission (CEC) took the next step in the implementation of Assembly Bill (AB) 32, California’s ambitious greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions – reduction initiative, with the release of a 300-page proposed decision on GHG regulatory strategies.

Do you have enough women working in your power plant? Forget for a moment equal opportunity laws. More important is the knowledge that the programs and culture changes that would make women more likely to consider a plant career are the same ones that would make it more attractive to many younger men.

An integrated matrix of 10 high-power flywheels built and tested by Beacon Power Corp. earlier this year successfully absorbed and supplied a full megawatt of electricity, the energy storage technology company said in September. The achievement could mean that grid regulation using efficient energy storage is close to commercial deployment. The flywheel system, called the […]

News items of interest to power industry professionals. Mitsubishi to supply gas turbines to Endesa. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. (MHI) said in September it had received a full turnkey order for two sets of liquefied natural gas – fired gas turbine combined- cycle (GTCC) power generation systems from Endesa Generacion S.A., an electricity generation company […]

Faced with soaring energy prices, researchers and developers worldwide are giving compressed air energy storage (CAES)—a technology almost 50 years old—a dusting, a spit shine, and a new life. In particular, they see it as a critical component for the dispatch of wind and other renewable power. The technology, which involves storing off-peak-generated energy in […]

Worldwide energy consumption is projected to grow 50% between 2005 and 2030, driven by robust economic growth and expanding populations in the world’s developing countries, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in a reference case projection from its International Energy Outlook 2008 in June.

In early August, a special transport departed from Voith Siemens Hydro’s Heidenheim workshop bearing the company’s 300-ton, 300-MVA hydro motor-generator back to Schluchseewerk AG’s Wehr pumped-storage station in Germany’s Black Forest.

News items of interest to power industry professionals. EDF and CGNPG create joint venture for Taishan nukes. Électricité de France (EDF) and the China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group (CGNPG) on Aug. 10 finalized a framework agreement made earlier, in November 2007, and formally created a joint venture company to build and operate two evolutionary pressurized […]

Cost hikes for all things nuclear in the U.S. and UK / North Americans plan liquid makeover for coal / California balloon bill deflates in legislative process / The Lego skyscraper / Of manure and methane / U.S. small wind turbine market moving slowly / Israeli desert center tests solar thermal tech for California desert / POWER digest / Correction

Australia considers seabed sequestration legislation / ElectraTherm installs its first commercial waste-heat generator / Mass. researchers achieve dramatic increase in thermoelectric efficiency / Nuclear power option for developing nations gaining steam / The great green wall of China / POWER digest / Correction

Yucca Mountain plan sent to NRC/ CPV cells get cooling chips from IBM/ StatoilHydro to pilot test first offshore floating wind turbine/ U.S. rivers next massive power source?/ Siemens delivers 500-MW gasifiers/ Algae: A green solution/ POWER digest

By Steven F. Greenwald and Jeffrey P. Gray David Crane, the CEO of NRG Energy, was recently quoted in a widely disseminated publication as saying: “It is a moral imperative that we take steps to reduce CO2 concentration in the earth’s atmosphere.” One might expect those reacting to Crane’s comments (made in a February 2007 […]