Coal

The integration of intermittent renewable energy to power grids worldwide has meant there’s a need for technologies designed to support grid stability.

POWER’s 2026 Water Award winner—WA Parish Unit 8 in Texas—integrated commercial-scale thermal evaporation into an operating coal plant, pairing verified performance with a retrofit that leveraged

The issue of load growth for the power grid and electric utilities has an overlooked answer: reinvesting in the coal-fired power plant sites being retired.

Infinigen, a Puerto Rico-based independent power producer, in late August announced the closing of a $33-million tax equity investment in the Yabucoa Solar Project.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled against the Trump administration’s order to keep the J.H. Campbell coal-fired power plant in Michigan operating. The decision that could impact other orders that have been issued to keep U.S. coal-fired power plants operating past their scheduled retirement dates.

The most consequential number in current American energy planning is one that nobody in the room where it gets made believes.

When I walk into the main office of a power plant, it’s always on the main TV screen, along with heat rate, load, and other critical numbers. I’m talking about condenser backpressure. Every power plant manager watches this number (Figure 1), and they should. A PEPSE (Performance Evaluation of Power System Efficiencies) analysis of a […]

Engro Powergen Thar Limited turned an untapped desert coalfield into Pakistan’s cheapest power—and a template for energy independence. Pakistan entered the second half of the 2010s in chronic power

Arizona Public Service (APS) said it plans to convert two closed coal-fired units at its Cholla Power Plant to burn natural gas. The utility this month said construction on the conversion would begin in 2028, with the new units—designed to generate 380 MW of electricity—coming online the following year.

A $350 million Department of Energy (DOE) coal-revival program has put $18.5 million toward the TerraSpark Energy Campus, a 1.6-GW greenfield project in West Virginia pairing Babcock & Wilcox (B&W) supercritical boilers with Mantel Capture’s molten borate carbon capture. In responses to POWER, developer TerraSpark laid out a 2030 startup target, a 95% to 98% […]

System planners and grid operators are treating extreme heat as an assumed operating condition given new pressures, including drought, demand growth, and fuel concerns. Will it be enough? For decades, the U.S. power system treated extreme heat as a tail risk, managed through seasonal readiness—something for which to prepare. But hotter conditions are now arriving […]

From EOP-012-3 to Order 587-AB, from Cold Weather Critical Component inventories to dual-fuel conversions, the bulk power system has spent five years rewiring how it prepares for extreme cold. Winter Storm Fern, the latest test, showed the system ran “very close to the edge.” The last five winters have given the North American power sector […]

How industrial middleware unlocks the full value of operational data AI and why most AI programs fail without it   Power companies are being asked to deliver higher reliability while their operating environment becomes more dynamic. Conventional power generation: must run with greater flexibility, grid assets must absorb new load patterns, renewable portfolios must operate […]

POWER is pleased to announce the finalists for the 2026 POWER Awards, recognizing the projects, people, and organizations setting the pace for the global power industry. Winners will be revealed at an awards ceremony at Experience POWER in Washington, D.C., on Monday, Sept. 28, 2026, at 5 p.m. New this year: the Plant of the […]

PJM Interconnection’s first interconnection “cycle” under its revamped, clustered review process has attracted 811 new generation projects representing roughly 220 GW of nameplate capacity. The effort now moves to a validation phase, under which the grid operator will confirm that applicants have met baseline technical and financial requirements—including site control and readiness commitments—before advancing qualified […]

A catastrophic boiler explosion at Vedanta Limited’s Chhattisgarh Thermal Power Plant (VLCTPP) in east‑central India has left scores of workers dead and injured, prompting questions over boiler safety enforcement and operator oversight at privately owned coal plants in the country. The explosion, which occurred on April 14, has triggered parallel criminal, technical, and administrative investigations […]

Chinese officials have said they will revive a multibillion-dollar coal gasification project, in part due to global gas supply disruptions caused by the U.S. and Isreal’s war with Iran.

After decades of relatively flat electricity demand, the U.S. power sector is suddenly racing to keep up—and rural electric cooperatives, which serve 42 million people across 54% of the nation’s land mass, are feeling the squeeze as acutely as anyone. As a guest on The POWER Podcast, Jim Matheson, CEO of the National Rural Electric […]

Officials with Taiwan Power Co. (Taipower) said the energy company plans to resume operations at two coal-fired units for at least three months, as the country seeks to support its supply of electricity due to the energy impacts of the Iran war.

Officials in Italy have said they are prepared to restart that country’s four remaining coal-fired power plants if supply issues for oil and natural gas persist due to the Iran war. The comments from Energy Minister Gilberto Pichetto Fratin earlier this month came just days after government officials in an energy bill said they would […]

Since May 2025, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has issued more than 40 emergency orders and extensions under Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act—more than in any comparable period in the past two decades. The orders have fallen into two broad categories: retirement deferrals, which compel utilities and grid operators to keep specific generating […]

Overcoming architectural fragmentation in your control environment Many power plants were constructed incrementally over time – control system, adding OEM-supplied turbines and balance-of-plant controllers, proprietary firmware, relays – layer by layer. What was never fully designed was how these systems would function as a single organism over a 30- to 40- year asset life. The […]

A fact sheet published by the U.S. Dept. of the Interior notes a $1-billion agreement between Hyundai Heavy Industries Power Systems and developers of the proposed 1.25-GW Terra Energy Center, a new 1.25-GW coal-fired power plant in Alaska. Officials on March 16 said the Terra Energy Center would be the first new coal-fired station built in the U.S. in more than a decade.

Energy regulators in Arizona have given the go-ahead to convert several units at two coal-fired power plants in the state to burn natural gas.

U.S.-based Energea in mid-January announced its acquisition of the YO Residence Solar Project, marking a significant milestone as the company’s first microgrid investment and entry into South Africa’s renewable energy market.

Despite growing technical maturity, post-combustion carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects for power generation continue to face decisive hurdles. Integration complexity, financing structures, and risk

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly becoming one of the most significant drivers of global electricity demand. By 2030, data centre consumption is expected to more than double, from 415 TWh to 945 TWh, driven by AI-optimised servers that use up to 10 times the energy of traditional computing. In the U.S., data centres may account […]

Technology group Wärtsilä has been selected by Gramme Storage 1 to deliver a 50-MW/100-MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) in central-eastern Belgium. The companies on February 16 said that the project supports Belgium’s transition toward the use of more renewable energy resources.

Affordable electricity prices have become a top priority for consumers, policymakers, voters, and elected officials. Electricity prices for the residential, commercial, industrial, and transportation sectors averaged 6.7% higher in September 2025, compared to the same month one year ago. Residential prices alone increased by more than 7%, making it especially challenging for low- and middle-income […]

The thermal utilization of sustainable fuels and the recovery of waste heat play a central role in today’s energy generation and the decarbonization of the global industry. Industrial boilers are the backbone of this transition and provide steam for district heating, process applications, and electricity generation. To unleash their potential, boilers must operate cleanly and […]