Markets

COMMENTARY Are power purchase and similar agreements excluded from the automatic stay under the safe harbor for forward contracts? Both the FirstEnergy Solutions and Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) bankruptcies have seen proceedings regarding power purchase and similar agreements (PPAs) that raise this question. Contracts often contain provisions that enable a party to terminate or modify […]

Energy supplies are tight in the Pacific Northwest, a region that has been stricken with unseasonably frigid weather and is bracing for deep freezes as a mass of Arctic air descends on the region.    The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), a federal power marketer that sells wholesale power from 31 federal dams and one nuclear […]

After the Great Tohoku Earthquake and tsunami, and ensuing crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in March 2011, Japan issued stringent safety regulations and reviews that affected its entire 50-reactor fleet. It meant that as each Japanese nuclear reactor entered its scheduled maintenance and refueling outage, it could not returned to operation until restart […]

Eight years after Germany decided it would halt nuclear power production by 2022, the country that relied on lignite and hard coal for 38% of its generated power in 2018 will phase out coal by 2038 or earlier

Gas turbines come in a variety of sizes. While large combustion turbines seem to get the bulk of the publicity, with the likes of Siemens, GE, and Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems making the most noise

(BARBERTON, Ohio – February 26, 2019) – Babcock & Wilcox Enterprises, Inc. (NYSE:BW) (B&W) announced today that its Denmark-based subsidiary, Babcock & Wilcox Vølund A/S, has signed a licensing agreement to provide its water-cooled vibrating grate technology for biomass boilers to thyssenkrupp Industries India Pvt. Limited on an exclusive basis for projects in India, Nepal, […]

Danish engineering, design, and consultancy firm Ramboll Group in December  entered into an agreement to acquire U.S-based engineering and design consultancy OBG. Founded in 1945, OBG has delivered integrated engineering solutions within water, energy, environment and advanced manufacturing, and today, the company says it has extensive client relationships in both the private and public sectors, […]

Hitachi and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI), two giant Japanese companies with substantial stakes in the world’s power sector, are separately rethinking future business directions as sizable disruptions shake up prospects for traditional market growth. In recent months, Hitachi refined its business model to prepare it for explosive demand in  digitalization solutions, focusing heavily on grid […]

The Siemens H-class turbine has been on the market for nearly a decade and has now achieved a significant milestone by exceeding one-million fired hours of commercial operation. With 70 turbines in operation on four continents and almost 100 machines sold, the SGT-8000H is the market leader in its class and delivers a top performance […]

Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems (MHPS) appears to have snagged the lead in an intensifying competition in a mostly flat market for heavy-duty gas turbines of above 100 MW, but GE retained its lead both for overall installed gas turbine capacity and units in 2018, a much-watched industry ranking suggests. Data from McCoy Power Reports’ latest […]

Pennsylvania, the nation’s second-largest nuclear power-producing state, is now definitively a battleground for nuclear power subsidies.  Last week, in two memos that were circulated in the state House and Senate, seven lawmakers signaled they would soon introduce legislation that would update a 2004 state law—the Alternative Energy Portfolio Standards (AEPS)—to include nuclear power. The law […]

Voith wins modernization order for Togolese hydropower plant Nangbeto Extensive modernization ensures a future-oriented operation of the West African power plant for the next 30 years High level of involvement of local partners creates jobs on site Training courses enable the operators to handle upgraded components properly Heidenheim. Voith is the general contractor for the […]

GE Power’s financials spun out further on a dismal trajectory during the fourth quarter of 2018, plagued by slack market demand for products and services, technical glitches of a flagship gas turbine model, and poor project execution. Despite a series of divestments and corporate reshuffles, including of leadership, for the 12 months that ended on […]

In line with customer preferences, U.S. investor-owned electric companies are heavily invested in decarbonization and electrification, the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) told Wall Street analysts and bankers on Feb. 6. In its annual presentation to potential investors and industry observers, the trade association that represents U.S. investor-owned electric companies lamented a number of uncertainties affecting […]

Visual MESA™ Multi-Period Optimizer (VM-MPO) 6 will reduce costly uncertainty in planning, scheduling and trading of energy over multiple time periods across portfolios of generation assets and different asset classes Houston, TX, February 4, 2019 – KBC (A Yokogawa Company) today announced the release of a new high-fidelity analytics technology, VM-MPO 6. It will allow […]

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) want to explore how federal and state authorities could incentivize cybersecurity and physical security in the power and natural gas sectors. The agencies issued a notice on Feb. 4 announcing they would jointly hold a technical conference on Thursday, March 28, 2019, from […]

China’s power sector reforms represent perhaps the world’s largest industrial reform program, with important consequences on both domestic and global levels. In 2015, Erdaoqiao, a settlement in southwest

Utility-sponsored energy-efficiency programs have always seemed like a contradiction to me. Obviously, power companies make money by selling electricity, so encouraging customers to install energy-efficient

Two weeks of intense negotiations at the 24th meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP) in Katowice, Poland, last December culminated in

Hydroelectric power doesn’t get much attention in today’s discussions of how to generate electricity, particularly in a world looking to boost renewable technologies such as wind and solar. But the oldest

Brutally cold temperatures in the midwestern and northeastern U.S. spurred grid operator alerts as natural gas demand has surged, power prices have soared, and there have been forced generator outages.  The polar vortex, an extreme cold event characterized by back-to-back cold fronts, has so far prompted states of emergency in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Michigan. On […]

The Colstrip Power Plant, a four-unit, 2,094-MW coal-fired station located about 100 miles east of Billings, Montana, could see its coal supply contract nullified as a result of Westmoreland Coal Co.’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization. Westmoreland operates the 25,000-acre Rosebud coal mine, among others. Rosebud is adjacent to the Colstrip plant and supplies almost all […]

GE has announced it will integrate its renewables, grid, and energy storage assets into a simplified, single business that nearly doubles the size of its Renewable Energy division, as the company banks on the accelerated uptake of grid-connected renewables worldwide.  The expansion will see GE’s grid solutions, solar solutions, and storage businesses move from GE […]

Hydro One, Ontario’s largest transmission and distribution provider, and Spokane, Washington–based U.S. utility Avista Corp., have dropped their merger, citing separate denials of the $5.3 billion deal by regulators in Washington and Idaho. The companies said on Jan. 23 they “mutually agreed” to terminate a merger agreement they announced in July 2017. As required by […]

LAKE MARY, FL – (Jan. 22, 2019) For the third time in the last twenty-two months, an Entergy Corporation subsidiary has selected two Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems (MHPS) gas turbine generation units. Entergy Texas, Inc. has selected MHPS’ technology to power its 993 megawatt Montgomery County Power Station (MCPS) near Willis, Texas. When it becomes […]

Izzet Bensusan, managing partner and founder of Captona, a North American-focused investment company that specializes in power generation and energy infrastructure, was a guest on The POWER Podcast. He is very bullish on the renewable energy industry for a variety of reasons. For instance, Bensusan said renewable energy is growing at more than 20% around […]

GE on Jan. 16 announced testing details of its giant 12-MW Haliade-X offshore wind turbine prototype. On the same day, Siemens Gamesa launched its first 10-MW offshore wind turbine model. The developments point to intensifying competition within the surging offshore wind turbine market.  GE’s 12-MW Offshore Wind Turbine Blusters Toward Commercialization GE Renewable Energy’s Haliade-X 12 […]

The International Energy Agency forecasts that based on current and proposed policies, global power generation will grow about 15,000 TWh (about 60%) from 2017 to 2040. About 70% of additions will be supplied by natural gas, wind, and solar photovoltaics in nearly equal shares. But despite a drop from its current share from 38% to […]

Cheap natural gas and social pressure to reduce carbon emissions give gas-fired power plants and renewable energy resources a competitive advantage over traditional coal and nuclear generation. Energy storage

To be a relevant player in the future power mix, coal power efficiency and costs must improve, and technologies in the realm of research and development promise to do just that. Although most experts agree