As load growth on U.S. transmission and distribution grids continues to shrink reserve margins nationwide, utilities are looking for new ways to meet demand peaks. Until recently, the most elegant…
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Power generation operations, plant siting, federal compliance, power plant finance, power generation saftey, power jobs
The length of term allowed for power sales contracts is a critical determinant of the ability of states to meet their increasingly ambitious renewable power targets. Many utilities advocate limiting…
Completing a power plant's start-up and commissioning usually means pushing the prime contractor to wrap up the remaining punch list items and getting the new operators trained. Staffers are tired…
Developing a power project requires a delicate balancing of the needs and wants—perceived or real—of dozens of stakeholders. It only takes one dissatisfied party to slow or even stop a…
"I think the biggest, most seismic change is going to come from mandatory reliability rules."—FERC Commissioner Nora Brownell The Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct) created a new regulatory entity—called…
Russia's new nuclear navy According to the Russian nuclear agency RIA Novosti, the state-owned nuclear power monopoly Rosenergoatom and the Sevmash shipyard in the Arctic port of Severodvinsk have signed…
The well-received coal-fired plant operator staffing benchmarking study published in POWER in September 2004 by the EUCG was recently joined by two additional studies: one of plant-level engineering and technical…
The 16th Annual Joint ISA POWID/EPRI Controls and Instrumentation Conference—also known as the 49th Annual POWID Symposium—was held this June in San Jose, Calif. Many of the trends driving this…
Electric utility mergers and acquisitions (M&As) are forged in the boardroom and fueled by Wall Street. But their success or failure is determined at power plants and depends largely on…
The utilities that have chosen to remain in the generation game are making a renewed commitment to becoming fitter competitors. From their executive suites on down, in response to the…