International

The world’s nuclear power industry has been busy in the new year, with several construction projects reaching key milestones as 2018 began. EPR Units Making Progress Four EPR nuclear units are under construction in three countries: Olkiluoto 3 in Finland began construction in August 2005, Flamanville 3 in France began construction in December 2007, and […]

All power plant equipment has a limited lifetime, but not all components age at the same rate. Some equipment may outlast the useful life of a plant, while other machinery may be replaced more than once

It is estimated that nearly 240 million Indians currently do not have access to electricity. In many cases that also means a lack of access to adequate health care or educational opportunities. It is no

Engineers from several companies have worked on upgrades to the technology, including designs that emphasize faster starts, quicker ramp-ups, increased efficiency, and better performance in a tight global

There are challenges facing the power industry in 2018, but there are also a lot of exciting opportunities. Renewable energy and gas-fired generation are expected to continue growing, but changes in federal

As power plants and substations become more connected, the need for rugged networking equipment built to withstand tough conditions is amplified. The military has already gone through the growing pains, so

The amount of electricity produced by gas-fired power generation has been increasing steadily in the U.S. for more than 25 years. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) reports that in 1990 about 372.8

The European Union (EU) is unequivocally continuing down a path of global climate and energy leadership while bringing online more carbon-neutral fuel systems throughout its 28 member states, closing in on the 2020 goal of a 20% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from 1990 levels. Indeed, the newly released European Environment 
Agency’s (EEA’s) Trends […]

An energy transition is underway across the world. Market upheaval, defining events, and recent policy changes have accelerated a shift away from coal toward renewables. Here is how this transformation played out for some of the world’s major economies over the past decade. Graphs show percent of each fuel source of total generation for that […]

In the next 25 years, the world will turn increasingly to renewables and natural gas to meet energy demand, turning away from coal, according to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA’s) World Energy

The project to build one of the world’s largest lithium-ion battery storage systems started out as a bet—on Twitter. Last March, Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted to Australian billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes

Construction Underway on New Unit at Serbian Coal Plant. It has been almost 30 years since any new power generation capacity was built in Serbia, but that stretch is coming to an end as China Machinery and

Iberdrola’s global strategy to close its remaining coal-fired power plants has met with government opposition in its home country of Spain. Days after Iberdrola, the country’s largest utility, said it

Unmanned aerial systems—drones—have quickly found their place in the power sector. But as the industry moves out of test cases and experiments, and into full implementation of drones, it is facing a whole

From deregulation and restructuring to new technology and globalization, the power industry has undergone dramatic changes over the past few decades. Falling barriers to entry have led to the rise of small and independent power producers, and empowered consumers with choices when it comes to where to purchase their energy. These changes have transformed a […]

Siemens claims to be paving the way for the next level of efficiency with the development of its HL-class gas turbine. In June 2017, the company announced it will validate the technology at Duke Energy’s Lincoln County site in North Carolina. Siemens is developing this class in an evolutionary development step derived from its proven […]

Olkiluoto 3, a much delayed first-of-its-kind EPR nuclear plant project under construction in Finland, has begun hot functional tests and should begin generating electricity in May 2019, according to Finnish utility Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO). TVO on December 19 said hot functional tests underway at the reactor, which are part of commissioning, are expected to […]

Kansai Electric Power Co. (KEPCO) announced it will permanently close two older nuclear reactors in Japan, rather than invest nearly 100 billion yen ($900 million) to bring the units up to the country’s new safety regulations. Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) created new standards for the country’s nuclear plants after the meltdown at the Fukushima […]

Moving toward sustainable manufacture of photovoltaics, Dr. Manuela Schiek’s research group in Oldenburg, Germany, has discovered how the latest technology in confocal laser scanning microscopy is enhancing both accuracy and efficiency of their research into organic semiconductors and transparent electrodes. Harvesting energy directly from the sun in order to generate electricity, solar cells appear to […]

We were standing in Volgodonsk, Russia, on a bridge that connected the third and fourth units of the Rostov Nuclear Power Plant (NPP). The fourth unit was under construction, and the deputy chief engineer of the Rostov NPP, Alexander Belyaev, told us that we were about to witness something unique. It was December 1, 2015, […]

Earlier this year, GE’s Power Services achieved a significant milestone with its 9EMax gas turbine upgrade solution. The 9EMax completed initial validation testing and was offered commercially to gas turbine customers around the globe. The first 9EMax unit was installed at a customer’s site in Asia. “First fire is a critical test where the gas […]

Oman recently began operating a Wärtsilä-built power plant in the northern part of the country, part of more than $1 billion in power and energy projects being developed in the Arab nation. The Musandam Independent Power Project (IPP) is a 120-MW natural gas-fired plant (Figure 1) that can use light fuel oil as a secondary […]

General Electric (GE) said December 7 it will cut 12,000 jobs in its power unit as the company continues to struggle with changes in the global power market. The company in a statement said the staff reductions will save $1 billion in 2018. “Traditional power markets including gas and coal have softened,” the company said, […]

In December 2016, Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems (MHPS) announced the introduction of its JAC gas turbine—a new air-cooled J-series model. The JAC has flexible ramping capabilities, an impressive 64% efficiency, 99.5% reliability, and a combined cycle output of 575 MW. Furthermore, the design has been thoroughly tested, with more than 14,000 operating hours at T-Point, MHPS’s validation facility. The […]

Fuel, operations, and plant design all affect the overall efficiency of a plant. This quiz is designed to test your knowledge of heat rate and efficiency fundamentals. Create your own user feedback survey To learn more about coal plant efficiency, frequent problems that reduce efficiency, and some solutions for improving operation and reducing generation costs, read “Understanding Coal […]

In a November report, The Global CCS Institute said carbon capture and storage (CCS) is the only technology able to decarbonize the industrial sector. To reach the Paris Agreement’s target to keep global atmospheric temperature increases to below 2 degrees Celsius, 2,500 CCS facilities will need to be operational by 2040, with 14% of cumulative […]

Cheap natural gas, the impact of subsidized intermittent renewables on power prices, and nuclear policies in several countries in the aftermath of the Fukushima accident will continue to hamper strong growth

After months of controversy, Australia’s federal government in October dumped its consideration of a clean energy target (CET) that sought to slash the country’s electricity emissions of carbon dioxide by

The state-owned North-West Power Generation Co. Ltd. (NWPGCL) in Bangladesh in early November announced plans to build a 3,600-MW regasification liquefied natural gas (LNG) combined cycle power plant in the

Construction Set to Begin on First Nuclear Plant in Turkey. Berat Albayrak, Turkey’s Energy and Natural Resources Minister, in mid-October said construction of the country’s first nuclear power plant would