International

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

Southeast Asia offers rich renewable sector opportunities, recently exemplified by Chevron’s multibillion-dollar sale of its Indonesian and Philippines geothermal projects, and the purchase of Equis Energy

On September 26, 2017, UK Climate Change Minister Claire Perry marched across a slightly muddy field to a 10-MW solar farm built by British renewable energy developer Anesco. The high-profile visit included a

The Longyangxia Dam Solar Park, part of a hydro-solar integration in the high desert on the Tibetan Plateau, has helped the country move toward its ambitious targets for increasing generation from cleaner fuel

The 330-MW Sarulla Geothermal Power Plant in Indonesia took decades to develop. Backed by a multinational financing effort along with support from the Indonesian government, the $1.6 billion project may be on

Cross-border trade in energy—electricity, natural gas, and oil—has been an unanticipated boon to the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, exceeding $140 billion in 2015. The Trump administration’s antipathy toward

Power plants are inherently dangerous. Although safety is taken very seriously at most facilities, every year workers around the world are killed on the job by electrocution, falls, explosions, fires, and

The world’s first floating offshore wind farm, located roughly 25 kilometers off the coast of Peterhead, Scotland, powered up on October 18, delivering electricity to the Scottish grid. Hywind Scotland was

The Swiss company Climeworks in October said it had begun another round of testing for a direct air capture (DAC) facility at a 300-MW geothermal power plant in Hellisheidi, Iceland. Climeworks, which is

When is a D+ grade acceptable? The answer should be never. But that’s the state of the U.S. power grid according to the 2017 infrastructure report card issued by the American Society for Civil Engineers (ASCE). And the impact of this year’s catastrophic hurricane season only reinforced its vulnerability. Given the billions of dollars of […]

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) World Energy Outlook 2017 (WEO). As in previous years, the report makes predictions based on different scenarios. This year’s include a New Policies Scenario, which […]

Officials in India say the the death toll from the November 1 explosion at an NTPC thermal plant in Unchahar has risen to 43, with seven more deaths reported in the past week. Dozens of workers at the plant were injured when flue gases and steam were released from a 500-MW coal-fired unit at the […]

India’s Power Ministry has established a committee to investigate the November 1 explosion at NTPC’s thermal power plant in Unchahar. The death toll from the blast is at 36, and dozens more workers at the plant were injured when flue gases and steam were released from a 500-MW coal-fired unit at the plant. Several remain […]