Plant Design

New Jersey-based Thea Energy, one of several U.S. companies working to commercialize fusion energy, said the company has raised $100 million in Series B funding. Thea is advancing stellarator technology to provide baseload fusion power. The company, which has several investors, is moving toward beginning construction of its Helios power plant (Figure 1) by the […]

Fives ProSim, a subsidiary of the Fives Group and an expert in industrial process simulation and optimization, announces the release of ProSimPlus Python API. This new solution enables users to run the engine of ProSimPlus, a leading software dedicated to the design, simulation, and optimization of continuous industrial processes, directly from the Python environment. A […]

Expected annual energy yield (PVout) is a fundamental number for every utility-scale photovoltaic (PV) project. It informs the design, shapes the budget, feeds the financial model, and influences what investors and lenders are willing to accept. Behind every expected yield estimate, however, is a range of uncertainty. Part of it comes from the solar resource […]

Duke Energy’s 11-unit nuclear fleet finished 2025 with a capacity factor greater than 97%—its best result on record. For Steven Capps, Duke’s senior vice president and Chief Nuclear Officer, that number is the foundation everything else has to sit on. “2025 was the best year we have had in terms of overall capacity factor for […]

There has never been a time when so much power was needed so fast. Driven by the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution, more data center capacity is in development or under construction now than has been built in all of history. According to analyst firm Industrial Info Resources (IIR), each month of 2025 saw at least […]

After decades of stagnation, nuclear power is firmly back in the energy discussion. Surging electricity demand, hyperscale data centers hunting for firm round-the-clock power, and growing pressure to decarbonize industrial heat have converged to revive interest in both new reactor construction and lifetime extensions of the existing fleet. The resurgence is broader than a single […]

Solar canopies are unlocking clean energy potential in some of the built environment’s most underutilized spaces, but success depends on getting the details right. Solar canopy projects above parking

Why megawatts, siting, firm generation, and power-aware design are becoming the real inner loop of the artificial intelligence (AI) race. “We are knocking on the door of these incredible capabilities. The ability to build basically machines out of sand.” Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, used that phrase at Davos this January to describe how silicon […]

Across the power sector, plant owners are confronting a fundamental question: how long can existing assets continue to operate safely and economically? What was once a long-range planning exercise has become an immediate strategic priority, driven by a convergence of market, operational, and policy pressures. Load demand is rising at a pace many utilities and […]

Global energy demand is outpacing supply, driving the need for expanded and more reliable infrastructure across oil and gas, nuclear, and renewable energy systems. Steel is essential to building and connecting this infrastructure, delivering the strength, durability, and performance required to operate in extreme environments and at scale. American-made steel provides consistent quality, material traceability, […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has proposed a sweeping new licensing framework designed to push microreactors out of the lab and onto the grid at unprecedented speed. The proposed rule, called Part 57, is paired with a broader agency overhaul that earlier this year created the Office of Advanced Reactors (OAR), headed by longtime […]

The data center industry is having a power problem. The problem is at the rack. Artificial intelligence (AI) is driving rack power into ranges where conversion losses are no longer background noise. Every piece of equipment in a data center rack—graphics processing units (GPUs), central processing units (CPUs), storage—runs on direct-current (DC) power. Most facilities […]

A Florida-based startup intends to build factory-produced nuclear systems designed to fit in shipping containers and run for 30 years without refueling. Here’s how the technology works—and where it stands. The global appetite for electricity is surging. Data centers, industrial electrification, and perhaps a coming wave of humanoid robotics are layering exponential demand onto a […]

Overcoming architectural fragmentation in your control environment Many power plants were constructed incrementally over time – control system, adding OEM-supplied turbines and balance-of-plant controllers, proprietary firmware, relays – layer by layer. What was never fully designed was how these systems would function as a single organism over a 30- to 40- year asset life. The […]

Many customers overlook the steam turbine and generator when evaluating a gas turbine upgrade, leaving potential megawatts and heat-rate improvements untapped. This webinar will educate participants on the downstream effects of common gas turbine upgrades and show how to harness the additional energy and steam to generate more megawatts and maximize overall plant performance. During […]

Artificial intelligence (AI) has pushed the idea of a “one-button start-up” from sci-fi closer to engineering reality. But where is industrial AI for energy operations today, and how far away is that fully

Manufacturers respond with gigawatt-scale deployments, fast-start technology, and expanded production capacity. The global appetite for electricity has never been more insatiable, and at the heart of this

  See how AI is transforming combined cycle power plants! In this episode of AI in Action, discover how the Ovation™ Virtual Advisor and Ovation AI Agents help operators quickly analyze alarms and speed up startup processes. It’s a real-world look at how artificial intelligence boosts performance and decision-making across operations, improving situational awareness, reducing […]

When poor data & controls create too much room for plant outages and loss of productivity and profits.   Combined Cycle Power Plants (CCPPs) play a strategic role in enabling renewables and the hydrogen transition, but their reliability hinges on quality data — accurate, timely, consistent, complete, secure – to reflect true system conditions in […]

Fusion energy company Helion said its Polaris prototype has set new industry benchmarks, becoming the first privately developed fusion energy machine to demonstrate measurable deuterium-tritium fusion and achieve plasma temperatures of 150 million degrees Celsius.

A Massachusetts-headquartered nuclear energy company said it has received $33 million from a Series A funding round as the group scales its technology. Alva Energy on February 12 announced it has launched with a goal to support new electric power generation capacity from the existing U.S. reactor fleet.

From plunging costs to policy upheaval, the global battery storage sector is transforming grid design—and facing unprecedented challenges. The energy storage industry stands at a pivotal crossroads. On one side, costs are plummeting so dramatically that utility-scale batteries can now deliver solar power around the clock at competitive prices. On the other, regulatory upheaval—particularly in […]

The unprecedented revolution in digital infrastructure, driven by the explosion in artificial intelligence (AI) services and cloud computing, is fueling an economic boom so large it drove 92% of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the first half of 2025. However, this wave of technological innovation is hiding rising ratepayer burden and mounting reliability […]

Eavor’s Geretsried project marks the first time a closed-loop geothermal system has delivered electricity to a commercial power grid, demonstrating a new pathway for advanced geothermal deployment. Calgary-based Eavor Technologies on Dec. 4, 2025, became the first company to deliver electricity to a commercial power grid at its Geretsried facility in Bavaria, Germany, using a fully […]

A North Carolina-headquartered developer of small modular nuclear power plants announced it has an agreement with the U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE) for an initiative to build and operate a molten salt reactor.

Centralized remote monitoring is reshaping power plant operations, enabling specialized teams to oversee multiple facilities from a single location. This discussion examines the technology, benefits, and

Power plants are engineered with precision down to the smallest detail, yet one critical variable is often considered too late in the process: water chemistry. When it’s considered early in design rather

Electricity management is undergoing a fundamental shift. The traditional model of one-way power flows is giving way to a dynamic system shaped by distributed assets and active consumer participation. Renewables are proliferating, distributed energy resource (DER) adoption is accelerating and assets are emerging at the grid edge.

The hydropower industry stands at a critical juncture where traditional operation and maintenance are quickly becoming obsolete. As global energy demand surges and grid systems become increasingly dynamic, hydropower operators face unprecedented challenges in maintaining optimal machine performance under variable operating conditions while at the same time managing aging infrastructure and reduced staffing levels. Not […]

Data centers are already among the world’s hungriest power users, and artificial intelligence (AI) is pushing their energy consumption to new heights. The International Energy Agency expects data centers’ electricity use to more than double by 2030, reaching roughly 1,000 TWh. That’s a growth rate four times faster than the overall grid. In some scenarios, AI-optimized facilities could […]