Plant Design

The first effluent limitation guidelines update since 1982 is game-changing for many U.S. power plants.

Solar power has taken off the training wheels. Once an afterthought, solar photovoltaic (PV) generation has been one of the major sources of new capacity for several years. According to statistics from the

Two hyperbolic cooling towers rise 495 feet over Exelon Corp.’s Byron Generating Station about 110 miles west of Chicago, Ill. The towers help cool the two Westinghouse pressurized water reactors that are capable of generating up to 2,346 MW at the site. Like all classic wet transfer hyperbolic cooling towers (Figure 1), the Byron Generating […]

Creeped out and fatigued—that’s the state of many coal-fired boilers these days. Understanding failure mechanisms and suitable testing methods for identifying potential trouble can help you find problems before the problems find you. Even as the current regulatory environment pushes new power generation to utilize natural gas over other fuel sources, a significant amount of […]

Once again, a first-of-a-kind technology at a coal-fired power plant that is designed to reduce its greenhouse gas footprint has run into design, operational, and cost problems. This time, it’s Saskatchewan, Canada utility SaskPower’s Boundary Dam Carbon Capture project that’s facing scrutiny. (Earlier this week, an overdue precombustion carbon capture project, Mississippi Power’s Kemper County […]

Hydropower is booming, but unless you live in China, Latin America, or Africa, you may have missed it. Global installed capacity of hydroelectric generation has grown by more than 25% over the past decade

Before the official start of its Minds + Machines event in San Francisco this week, GE announced the launch of its “Digital Power Plant” during a briefing for the trade press. A formal announcement was to follow in the afternoon. Dick Ayres, general manager of software solutions, power generation services, explained that the company’s Predix […]

Emerging from decades of isolation, fragility, and conflict, Myanmar has, since 2011, ushered in a reformist government and embarked upon unprecedented political and economic reforms. Among those reforms has

Sharing borders with Saudi Arabia, Israel, Syria, and Iraq, Jordan sits in a very precarious part of the world. To make matters worse, the country’s economy is among the smallest in the Middle East. Chronic

The Turkish electricity market was opened to competition in 2001 when the Turkish Grand National Assembly passed the Electricity Market Law, which unbundled its generation, transmission, and wholesale power

In the early 2010s, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) was staring down the barrel of dangerously low reserve margins, a combination of growing demand and an energy-only wholesale market that

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is facing major population growth over the next several decades and, with it, rapidly growing electricity demand. In 2013, the country generated 292.2 TWh of electricity, which

As with many areas in North America and Europe, electricity generation in the Canadian province of Alberta is in transition toward cleaner, more efficient, more water-wise power. According to statistics from

While having lunch at a downtown café with my friend the biology professor, the subject of animal extinction arose. “When it comes down to it, we really don’t know exactly why most prehistoric species

Courtesy: Colorado Energy Nations, GDF SUEZ Energy NA, and Behrent Engineering POWER’s 2015 Reinvention Award (formerly known as the Marmaduke Award) goes to an industrial cogeneration plant that reinvented its largest unit for greater fuel and operating flexibility. This project is exemplary for the owner’s foresight, maximizing local engineering resources, a stellar safety record, and […]

Despite wind power’s going “mainstream,” original equipment manufacturers and end users struggle to pin down quality standards for ever-evolving wind turbine component technologies. As more utilities embrace wind power, the U.S. wind turbine market has expanded tremendously over the years. It has proliferated into numerous facilities that specialize in the roughly 8,000 component parts that […]

Steam turbine technology took a leap in June as Siemens revealed a 10-MW prototype that uses magnetic force to suspend a rotor weighing several tons. The innovation means that instead of needing hundreds of liters of oil for the bearings, the first-of-its-kind steam turbine only needs about three liters of oil (for the valve actuators […]

Two of the most important elements in any construction or upgrade project are safety and speed of completion. While one way to increase safety is to eliminate hot work whenever possible, the reality is that welding is necessary for many tasks around a power plant. However, one area where welding may not always be required […]

Courtesy: SaskPower There was no debate among our editorial team when it came to selecting the most interesting and worthy project worldwide for this year’s top award. Boundary Dam Power Station Unit 3 is the world’s first operating coal-fired power plant to implement a full-scale post-combustion carbon capture and storage system. It did so more […]

Of the three ways to comply with the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards for particulate matter (PM) measurement, using an optical PM continuous emissions monitoring system (CEMS) also delivers valuable side benefits, especially for units using wet flue gas desulfurization (FGD).  Editor’s Note: This issue was published before the June 29, 2015, ruling by the […]

As the Chinese government lowers the particulate matter (PM2.5) limits to 5 mg/Nm3 or less in coal-fired power plants, wet electrostatic precipitators are one of the key environmental components utilities select to meet this requirement. Optimization of continuous water washing of electrodes allows lower-cost alloys to be used, reducing capital expenditures.  Wet electrostatic precipitators (WESPs) […]

The Environmental Protection Agency’s emission factor resource, AP-42, is not your only option for developing particulate matter (PM) emission rates. Results of a prominent PM emissions measurement research program for gas-fired plants have been successfully used to support development and application of alternate PM2.5 emission factors by both regulatory agencies and permit applicants The regulatory […]

SaskPower, the Saskatchewan provincial utility that made history last year by developing the first full-scale post-combustion carbon capture retrofit for an operating coal-fired power plant, has taken the next step in fostering development of the technology. Its Carbon Capture Test Facility (CCTF) has officially been launched in Estevan, Saskatchewan. The June 18 launch was attended […]

The Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) on May 14 announced $60 million in funding for 23 new projects to foster new technologies in dry cooling and fusion power. The Advanced Research In Dry cooling (ARID) initiative, one of ARPA-E’s newest projects, will provide $30 million to support 14 project teams developing […]

Given the costs and other concerns about currently available technologies for capturing and storing carbon dioxide from fossil-fueled power plants, interest in new technologies remains high. Here’s a look at some potentially promising approaches that are advancing the technology frontier.  Frontiers represent the boundary between the known and the unknown. As researchers attempt to push […]

Advocates for the continued reliance on coal for baseload electricity cheered late last year when North America’s largest power-related carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) facility was commissioned. Since then, that pool of advocates is evaporating as prominent electricity industry decision-makers publicly distance themselves from coal and champion alternatives for a low- or no-carbon future. If […]

What turns a trend from trendy to established? In the energy industry it can be any number of things, from a technology breakthrough, to a new market, to forces of nature. The shale gas boom in the U.S. is the most well-known example of a technology trend that has changed the economics for all power […]

Transporting household and industrial waste as well as sewage sludge from a treatment plant to a power station can be a messy business. The utility company Linz AG found that a pipe conveyor system offered an optimal solution. The conveyor is not only highly energy efficient, but due to its closed design, it also allows […]

Argentina’s Ministry of Federal Planning in early February signed an agreement with the National Energy Administration of China and China National Nuclear Co. (CNNC) to build Argentina’s fourth nuclear reactor, an 800-MW CANDU design, on the site of the existing Atucha nuclear power plant. Under the agreement, Nucleoeléctrica Argentina—holder of the rights to Canadian CANDU […]

It’s been called “filling the duck pond,” and it’s the increasingly common challenge worldwide of balancing supply and demand when variable renewables are not feeding power to the grid. Gas-fired generation is often filling the pond, but the technology mix matters. The growing portfolio of renewable power generation around the world has made the selection […]