News

An explosion at EDF Energy’s Flamanville nuclear power station in France has been controlled, the utility said. The blast, which rocked Unit 1 at the nuclear plant on France’s northern coast at around 9:45 a.m. local time on February 9, stemmed from a fire originating from a fan located under the generator, EDF Energy said […]

Former President Barack Obama’s regulation-heavy Climate Action Plan was inefficient and should be replaced with a carbon tax, a group of senior Republican statesmen told White House officials during a February 8 meeting. The new pitch is laid out in a paper by the Climate Leadership Council — whose membership includes former GOP Treasury Secretaries […]

President Donald Trump’s drive to roll back federal regulations, especially from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), will not be simple or smooth, a veteran Washington, D.C., attorney said at a utility conference on February 8. Speaking at the Energy, Utility, and Environment Conference (EUEC) in San Diego, Calif., Thomas Lorenzen, a partner with D.C.–based law […]

Denmark’s DONG Energy is the latest in a string of power companies that are shunning the use of coal in future generation fleets. The company said on February 8 it will stop burning coal completely by 2023 in its power stations, replacing it with sustainable biomass. The measure is part of a company-wide transformation towards […]

As House Republicans issued a bill to dismantle the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) this week, a House committee held a hearing on how to make the agency “great again,” and former EPA employees expressed serious concerns about the looming nomination of Scott Pruitt to head the agency. The bill (H.R. 861), which seeks to […]

Pairing energy storage with rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) systems has been widely touted as the path for greater deployment of renewable energy, but a new study from researchers at the University of Texas suggests doing so may actually increase overall energy consumption and emissions. The study, “The Impacts of Storing Solar Energy in the Home […]

What do we know as of February 1 about key Trump appointees responsible for administering White House policies affecting the power generation industry? Not much. As the Trump administration settles in, how his teams at energy and environment agencies will implement his policy agenda remains unclear, as does his agenda. At the end of January, […]

Democrats on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee are digging their heels in, refusing to allow a vote on President Donald Trump’s nominee for administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt. Pruitt’s nomination was due to come to a vote February 1, but when it came time to gavel […]

As one of its first announcements under the Trump administration, the Department of Energy (DOE) will invest up to $30 million in new projects to support the integration of solar into the nation’s electric grid. The agency’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy announced the measure as part of its SunShot Initiative, which the […]

In a step that it hopes will be emulated by developers of new natural gas generation facilities in the U.S., NTE Energy has voluntarily committed to drastically slash greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the proposed 550-MW Killingly Energy Center facility in Connecticut—and to shut it down by 2050 unless it operates with no net GHG […]

Canada Inches Closer to Nationwide Carbon Price. Canada’s government in early December struck a deal with eight of the country’s 10 provinces to introduce its first national carbon price. The government has proposed that carbon would cost C$10 per metric ton in 2018, rising by C$10 a year until it reaches C$50 in 2022. Only […]

Heads of some of the nation’s energy trade groups are looking forward to a rollback of regulations under the Trump administration, they said January 31 during a panel discussion at the United States Energy Association’s annual State of the Energy Industry Forum. President and CEO of the National Mining Association, Hal Quinn, perhaps the most […]

An explosion and fire at the Delta Energy Center—an 835-MW combined cycle power plant located in Pittsburg, Calif.—forced the station offline on January 29. A spokesperson for Calpine Corp., the plant owner, told POWER that the fire was contained to the facility and that there was no danger to the neighboring community. No injuries occurred […]

American Electric Power (AEP) has sold four competitive natural gas and coal power plants‚ a total of 5.2 GW, and plans to invest the proceeds from the sale in its regulated business. AEP completed the sale of the plants to Lightstone Generation LLC, a joint venture of Blackstone and an affiliate of ArcLight Capital Partners […]

The board of French utility EDF has approved a compensation package for the closure of France’s oldest nuclear reactor, the 39-year-old Fessenheim nuclear plant, but it delayed making a final decision on the closure until after the presidential election this spring. Closure of the 1,800-MW Fessenheim plant in northeastern France, near the German border, has […]

Having been denied a request for an extended schedule, petitioners in an ongoing lawsuit challenging the merits of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) for coal-fired power plants late on January 23 filed a series of briefs with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The briefs filed […]

A crane boom collapsed under heavy winds at the Takahama nuclear power plant in Japan, landing on the Unit 2 reactor building and fuel handling building at around 9:50 p.m. local time on January 20. Plant operator, Kansai Electric Power Co. (KEPCO), reported that no injuries and no adverse environmental effects resulted from the accident. […]

As part of its ongoing drive to exit competitive power markets, FirstEnergy Corp. said on January 23 that it has agreed to sell four natural gas–fired power plants in Pennsylvania and its competitive share of a pumped-storage hydroelectric plant in Virginia to private equity firm LS Power Equity Partners III. FirstEnergy announced last year that […]

The Trump administration will scrap executive actions to curb U.S. carbon pollution from power plants and other climate measures outlined in the Obama administration’s landmark Climate Action Plan, according to an “energy plan” published by President Donald Trump’s White House minutes after he was inaugurated January 20. Under the White House’s plan, the Trump administration […]

While admitting no wrongdoing or liability, Duke Energy reached an agreement with the U.S. government to resolve a lawsuit related to its acquisition of a Florida gas-fired power plant. The plant in question—Osprey Energy Center (Figure 1)—is a 537-MW two-unit combined cycle facility located in Auburndale, Fla., that Duke Energy purchased from Calpine Construction Finance […]

As France’s grid operator Réseau de Transport d’Électricité (RTE) warned the public that they need to start taking measures to conserve energy as temperatures plummet or face rolling blackouts, the nation’s nuclear watchdog, the Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire (ASN), has given the go-ahead to restart all but three of the 12 nuclear reactors that have […]

China’s National Energy Administration (NEA) has ordered the cessation or postponement of 104 coal-fired power projects in 13 provinces scattered around the country. The body responsible for formulating and implementing energy development plans and industrial policies issued the order on January 16 to achieve goals to cap national installed coal capacity at 1,100 GW as […]

Amazon’s latest wind farm in coastal North Carolina has completed construction and is weeks from beginning operations—and state legislators have just asked the incoming Trump administration to shut it down. The $400 million, 208-MW, 104-turbine project, built by Apex Renewables near Elizabeth City and backed by financing from Iberdrola Renewables, is supposed to power Amazon’s […]

Homer City Generation, operator of a three-unit, 1,884-MW coal-fired generating station about 45 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, Pa., has initiated a voluntary, pre-packaged Chapter 11 case in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. The financial restructuring process is expected to eliminate more than $600 million in existing secured debt from Homer City’s […]

A bill to protect the U.S. power grid from cyber-attacks reintroduced by members of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee urges a “retro” approach to cybersecurity using a novel analog “disrupter” technology to guard computer-connected operating systems. U.S. Senators Jim Risch (R-Idaho) and Angus King (I-Maine) on January 10 renewed their support of the Securing Energy […]

Although AREVA recently disclosed that 17 U.S. nuclear power plant units have installed components that were forged at the Le Creusot facility in France—a forge that has been under scrutiny due to questionable quality assurance documentation and carbon segregation irregularities in some parts manufactured at the site—the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) does not consider the […]

Non-utility generators urge FERC to overturn state actions in New York and Illinois that the generators claim distort FERC’s wholesale electricity markets.

NuScale will submit the nation’s first application for design certification of a small modular reactor (SMR) to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on Thursday. The Corvallis, Ore.–based company, which is majority owned by the Fluor Corp., has been developing its light-water reactor nuclear technology for more than 15 years. Development of the NuScale power module […]

An incident at J.M. Stuart Station—a 2,318-MW coal and diesel generating facility operated by Dayton Power and Light Co. (DP&L)—resulted in six people being treated for non-life-threatening injuries. Several media outlets referred to the event as an explosion, citing nearby residents’ accounts of the incident. At least a few people said they heard and felt […]

For the third straight year, renewable generation accounted for the majority of new utility-scale capacity additions in the U.S. during 2016, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said on January 10. The EIA estimated that the U.S. added 24 GW of new utility-scale generation in 2016, of which 63% was renewables, almost all of it wind […]