Hydro

Fire protection systems for air-cooled hydroelectric generators have several special requirements due to these generators’ unique geometries. This survey of options will help plant owners and operators make the best equipment selections for their plants and thereby avoid unexpected surprises.

Brazil’s environment agency, IBAMA, in January issued a partial installation license that allows for construction of the controversial Belo Monte dam complex, an 11,233-MW project estimated to cost some 19.6 billion reals (US$11.7 billion), to begin on the margins of the Amazon’s Xingu River. Saying the project is needed to meet soaring electricity demand when completed, as planned in 2015, the government gave license to dam-building consortium Norte Energia to begin clearing 238.1 hectares (588 acres) of forestland.

Canada’s extensive natural resources are the driver of its powerful economy, and energy is Canada’s single most important export. Yet policy makers across the nation are currently dealing with the consequences of a generation of under-investment in the electricity system and deciding what the new grid and supply mix should look like. Several provinces are competing to lead the charge in renewable energy and grid intelligence. Policy makers hope that such efforts will not only provide for Canada’s electricity needs but also create the green economy jobs that will drive the nation’s next generation of economic development.

Like its neighbor to the south, Canada faces enormous costs to upgrade and expand its transmission and distribution system. The desire to integrate more renewable power into the grid, build a smarter grid, and export more power are providing the rationale for action, but capital and political will lag behind.

In Canada, as in the U.S., where you live determines the type of generation technology that provides your power. Here’s how the four most energy-intensive provinces in Canada are responding to the challenge of providing reliable and cheap power in a sustainable way.

Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR), the tiny landlocked country in Southeast Asia of just 6.3 million people, in December inaugurated the 1,070-MW Nam Theun 2 Power Station, a hydropower project in Khammouane Province.

In early January, Verdant Power—a decade-old company based in New York—made headlines for filing an application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for a project that could allow it to install up to 30 new tidal power turbines in the East Channel of the East River in New York City.

Researchers at Germany’s Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM) claim to have developed a small-scale hydroelectric power plant that is capable of operating profitably even at modest dam heights while minimizing impact on waterways.

Though electricity generation has entered a key period of transition—as investment shifts to low-carbon technologies—world electricity demand is set to grow faster than any other “final form of energy,” the International Energy Agency (IEA) says in its latest annual World Energy Outlook.

China in mid-November embarked upon building the first massive hydropower project in Tibet, a 6 x 85-MW plant straddling the middle reaches of the mighty Yarlung Tsangpo River (Figure 2). According to the Hunan Daily, a Chinese state-owned enterprise, Sinohydro began damming the river in Shannan Prefecture, Tibet, on Nov. 8, kicking off the 7.9 billion yuan ($1.2 billion) “run of the river” project that is estimated to generate electricity for the surrounding region by 2014.