News

Only 8% of utilities around the world have completed their smart grid technology implementations while 37% have projects under way and more than half haven’t yet started, according to a new Microsoft Corp. survey released at CERAWeek 2010.

SunEdison received final approval from the Italian government last week to develop and construct a 72-MW photovoltaic (PV) solar power plant in northeastern Italy, near the town of Rovigo. When completed, this is expected to be the largest PV solar power plant in Europe.

On Monday, the Illinois Senate overturned a 23-year-old ban on building new nuclear plants in the state.

NB Power announced last Wednesday that it will close its Grand Lake Generating Station earlier than anticipated due to a fire that occurred in the burner of the front boiler. The New Brunswick, Canada, plant was expected to close when its operating license expires in June this year.

A power blackout on Sunday that affected about 90% of Chile’s customers may have been a result of the massively destructive February 27 magnitude 8.8 earthquake. The country’s National Emergency Office (Onemi) said that power had been restored to 98% of the country by Monday—within hours of the outage—but the energy minister noted that the system would remain unstable for up to six months.

Last week POWERnews reported that the U.S. Department of Energy had awarded $40 million for preliminary work on the Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP). That was Monday. On Friday, the DOE issued two requests for applications (RFA) for scholarships and fellowships as part of its efforts to recruit and train the next generation of nuclear scientists and engineers.

Southern California Edison (SCE) and SunPower Corp. announced last Wednesday that SunPower has won a contract to provide solar technology for generating up to 200 MW, or 80%, of the solar power capacity needed for the utility’s large solar photovoltaic (PV) installation program. The agreement is an indication of the growing importance of aggregating distributed generation resources as an alternative to building large "utility-scale" generating plants.

A preliminary move on March 10 puts Turkey closer than ever to building its first nuclear power plant. The plant, which would consist of four reactors with a total 5,600 MW capacity, would be built in northern Turkey on the Black Sea coast.

Last week the first-ever ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit brought encouraging news to companies seeking to move their green technologies from the drawing board into the marketplace by announcing the availability of stimulus fund money. The Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA-E), part of the Department of Energy, is modeled on the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which led to developments including military and networking technologies.

On Monday, U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announced selections for the award of approximately $40 million in total to two teams led by Pittsburgh-based Westinghouse Electric Co. and San Diego–based General Atomics for conceptual design and planning work for the Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP).

The U.S. Department of Energy announced on March 3 that it had filed a motion to withdraw its license application to store high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain.

On Friday, Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter, Xcel Energy, and a coalition of lawmakers, energy companies, and environmentalists announced agreement on legislation that will lead the nation in cutting air pollution, creating jobs, and increasing the use of cleaner energy sources.

On Friday, First Wind, an independent U.S.-based wind energy company, was offered a conditional commitment from the Department of Energy for a $117 million loan guarantee to finance the construction of its proposed 30-MW Kahuku Wind project in Kahuku, Hawaii. The project is expected to include a battery energy storage system.

On Friday, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar praised the work of the 22-member Wind Turbine Guidelines Federal Advisory Committee, which reached consensus on a set of draft recommendations aimed at minimizing the impacts of land-based wind farms on wildlife and its habitat.

First Solar Inc. has signed a power purchase agreement to supply Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) with renewable electricity from a 300-MW photovoltaic (PV) solar power facility that First Solar is developing in Southern California.

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds keep flowing from Washington. On Tuesday, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announced that a project with NRG Energy has been selected to receive up to $154 million, including funding from ARRA. Located in Thompsons, Texas, the post-combustion capture and sequestration project will demonstrate advanced technology to reduce emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. It will also assist with enhanced oil recovery efforts from a nearby oil field.

American Electric Power has been named one of the top 50 companies for executive women by the National Association for Female Executives (NAFE) for a second time.

Entergy Corp. accepted a national award on Mar. 3 for its work restoring power following a destructive ice storm last year in Arkansas. It is the 12th consecutive year Entergy has received a storm response award from the Edison Electric Institute (EEI).

On Tuesday, Sweden’s enterprise minister, Maud Olofsson, announced in an editorial in Dagens Nyheter that his country would build 2,000 new wind turbines in 10 years for a total added capacity of 10 TWh by 2020. Sweden currently has the largest percentage (about 20%) of renewable energy in Europe and has a goal of supplying at least 50% of its energy from renewables by 2020.

While nuclear power is taking one step forward and two steps back in the U.S. (see top two stories), several other nations, particularly in Asia and the Middle East, are lining up to build new—or their first—reactors.

Last Wednesday, Vermont’s state Senate voted to disallow the operation of Vermont Yankee Nuclear Plant after its current license expires March 21, 2012. The plant would change ownership if Entergy were allowed to spin off a new company consisting of its merchant nuclear fleet. The likelihood of that happening now looks very dim.

Both units of the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant in southern Maryland were offline for 10 days after water leaked through the plant’s roof on Feb. 18, causing a ground fault at Unit 1 that led to a series of events resulting in the automatic shutdown of both units.

The 365-MW Powder River Basin coal–fired Wyodak Power Plant near Gillette, Wyo., shut down last Friday after one of its 140-foot-tall scrubber vessels sustained significant structural damage.

In a statement last Thursday, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) recommended that power plants and industry discontinue the gas venting practice that resulted in the massive explosion on Feb. 7 at the Connecticut Kleen Energy plant, which was not yet online.

Concentrix Solar, a German supplier of concentrator photovoltaic systems, announced on Feb. 24 that it has signed a contract with Chevron Technology Ventures for the deployment of a 1-MW concentrating solar power (CSP) plant to be installed at a Chevron Mining facility in Questa, New Mexico.

Sierra Instruments introduced a line of mass flow meters that conform to the new emissions reporting rule from the Environmental Protection Agency. That rule, 40 CFR Part 98, mandates that as of Jan. 2, 2010, U.S. companies that emit more than 25,000 tons a year of carbon dioxide equivalent must report their greenhouse gas (GHG) […]

NLB Corp. has extended the operating pressure range of its convertible NLB 325 Series water jet pump units to 40,000 psi — providing what the company calls the "industry’s widest operating pressure range available with up to 400 hp." These units can be converted in just 30 minutes to operate at 8,000 psi, 10,000 psi, […]

Huffman Corp. introduced model HP-245ACC, a laser welding system with a fully enclosed atmospheric welding chamber for welding in an inert gas environment. The system is designed for welding oxygen-sensitive or -reactive materials like titanium. The system can be configured with a variety of features like antechambers, inert gas handling and purification systems, oxygen and […]

The new Navigator 600 phosphate analyzer from ABB Instrumentation greatly reduces the amount of reagents and maintenance associated with phosphate monitoring while providing high accuracy and reliability. Designed for phosphate-dosed high-pressure boilers in the power generation industry, the Navigator 600 phosphate analyzer provides accurate monitoring of phosphate concentrations (0 to 15 ppm PO4) in a […]

Spectra-Physics, a Newport Corp. brand, introduced an addition to its Pulseo family of Q-Switched diode-pumped solid-state industrial lasers. The rugged and reliable Pulseo 355-10 provides 10 W of 355-nm output at 90 kHz with a short pulse width of less than 23 ns. Key applications for the Pulseo 355-10 are crystalline silicon photovoltaic solar cell […]