News

Officials with Hawaii Electric Light (HEL) on May 23 said the Puna Geothermal Venture power plant is secure, and that even if lava from the Kilauea eruption damages or destroys the facility, there is no danger of a blackout on the island because older, diesel-fueled plants have been brought online to provide electricity. HEL officials […]

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy signed a few important energy bills on May 23 including one (S-2313) that establishes a zero emissions certificate (ZEC) program, which reportedly will provide the state’s nuclear power plants with $300 million a year in ratepayer subsidies. To qualify, the plants must demonstrate that they make a significant contribution to […]

NTE Energy on May 21 inaugurated the new Middletown Energy Center in Middletown, Ohio, the latest in a series of natural gas-fired power plants the Florida-based company is developing in Ohio, Texas, and North and South Carolina. NTE touts the 525-MW Middletown combined cycle facility as among the most efficient gas-fired power plants in the […]

Dominion Energy will provide seed money to further work of GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy’s (GEH’s) BWRX-300, a 300-MWe small modular reactor design (SMR). Dominion has “no plan at this time to build one at any of its commercial nuclear stations,” but the funding could help bring the SMR design closer to commercialization, GEH said in […]

NextEra Energy on May 21 said it would acquire several assets from Southern Co., including Southern’s ownership interest in two natural gas-fired power plants in Florida, in a deal valued at about $6.5 billion. Southern in a statement Monday said the sale would help the company reduce debt, which has dogged Southern as its subsidiary […]

Wind power capacity in the U.S., whose explosive growth has tripled since 2008—even overtaking hydropower to become the nation’s largest source of renewable electricity—could face a period of stagnation once the production tax credit (PTC) is phased out in 2021. Analysts at WINDPOWER 2018 in Chicago last week called the period between 2021 and 2026 […]

Cybersecurity threats are outpacing the energy sector’s “best defenses,” and costs of preventing and responding to cyber incidents are straining company efforts to protect critical infrastructure, the Department of Energy (DOE) warned as it released a comprehensive five-year cybersecurity strategy for the industry. The Multiyear Plan for Energy Sector Cybersecurity, dated March 2018 but which […]

Drawing on decades of gas turbine experience, GE’s Power Services business announced on May 16 that it is expanding its cross-fleet service offerings to a broader portion of the F-class market, including Siemens’ SGT6-5000F and SGT-800 models, and Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems’ (MHPS’s) 501F technology. “GE is proven as one of the technology leaders and […]

GE will buy Alstom’s stakes in three energy joint ventures (JVs) the companies formed when GE acquired Alstom’s energy business nearly three years ago. Alstom and GE on May 4 signed an agreement that essentially sets out a plan for Alstom to exercise put options on JVs it formed with GE pertaining to their renewables […]

Unit 4 of Japan’s Ohi nuclear power plant is online again, the eighth reactor in the country to resume service after the Fukushima disaster in 2011. Japan idled all 50 of its remaining nuclear units after the incident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, which occurred when a 9.0-magnitude earthquake in March 2011 caused a massive […]