Renewables

  • FERC: There Is No Grid Emergency

    President Trump wants to provide financial support to struggling coal and nuclear power plants. He’s told the Department of Energy (DOE) to make it happen. But a bipartisan group of lawmakers on Capitol Hill, along with commissioners from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), made it clear June 12 they don’t support federal government intervention […]

  • SPX Mobile Display Trailer Highlights Advantages of Marley® Cooling Tower Components

    Showcasing innovative gearbox, driveshaft, fan, and heat transfer fill options Overland Park, Kan. – SPX Cooling Technologies, Inc., a full-line, full-service industry leader in the design and manufacture of evaporative cooling towers and air-cooled heat exchangers, has outfitted an 18-foot mobile trailer with displays of field-erected cooling tower components. Visitors to the trailer can see […]

  • GE Will Cut Jobs, End Manufacturing at Virginia Plant

    General Electric’s (GE’s) power unit has said it will end manufacturing operations at its plant in Salem, Virginia, next year, with more than 260 workers losing their jobs, according to union officials. Officials noted that 42% of the affected workers are eligible for retirement. The plan announced June 8 said the Salem plant, which opened […]

  • ABB to install multipurpose microgrid in Australia

    ABB will supply a microgrid solution to the Energy Storage for Commercial Renewable Integration (ESCRI) project, which will provide a more secure power supply in an area that has high renewable penetration into the grid. The solution will connect an ABB Ability PowerStore™ 30 megawatt (MW) battery energy storage solution to the Electranet transmission system […]

  • Valmet to supply a multifuel power boiler and a flue gas cleaning system to Air Water & Energia Power Onahama Corporation in Japan

    Valmet will supply a multifuel power boiler and a flue gas cleaning system to Air Water & Energia Power Onahama Corporation at Onahama Plant located at Iwaki City, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan. The new CFB boiler will enable the power plant to achieve a stable power supply at high thermal efficiency while significantly reducing CO2 emissions. The […]

  • Xcel Will Retire Coal, Add Renewables in Latest Plan

    Xcel Energy, citing “historically low” costs for wind and solar power, said it wants to double its generation from renewable sources. Colorado’s largest utility also said it will retire two coal-fired units representing 660 MW at its Comanche Generating Station in Pueblo at least 10 years ahead of schedule. The changes were outlined in a […]

  • Six Glaring Interventions in Competitive Markets — Beyond the Trump Plan

    The Trump administration’s attempt to prop up uneconomic “fuel secure” generators in competitive markets is just the latest in a string of recent “extra-market” interventions that experts said imperil independent organized markets for electricity. In a recent white paper, Raymond Gifford and Matthew Larson, energy partners at Wilkinson Barker Knauer LLP, said the restructured administrative […]

  • Exelon CEO Clarifies Headline-Grabbing No-Grid-Emergency Comment

    Chris Crane, CEO of Exelon Corp., seemed to take umbrage with the way comments he made on June 5 were reported by Utility Dive. The website published the headline “Exelon CEO: No grid emergency to justify DOE coal, nuke bailout,” but Crane went out of his way to clarify his position while on stage participating […]

  • West’s Largest Coal Plant Could Get a Lifeline

    The Navajo Generating Station (NGS) in Arizona is scheduled to close by year-end 2019, but intervention by the federal government could keep the West’s largest coal-fired power plant operating. At the same time, more than 300 of the plant’s workers, along with family members, union representatives and tribal leaders, held a rally in Phoenix on […]

  • Hurricane Season is Here; Is Your Grid Prepared?

    When Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico on September 20, 2017, no one could predict the level of devastation those 155-mph sustained winds would deliver. In its wake, Maria plunged the entire island of Puerto Rico into darkness, and decimated its aging distribution, transmission and generation infrastructure. By all predictions, it was going to […]

  • More Groups Weigh-in on Trump Move to Save Coal, Nuclear—Including Supporters

    Few entities have expressed approval of the Trump administration’s plan that includes a directive for system operators to buy or arrange purchase of energy or capacity from designated “fuel secure” power plants for two years until the Department of Energy (DOE) can address “grid security” challenges. The 41-page draft memo dated May 29—which was presumably authored […]

  • ABB to strengthen power infrastructure in Iraq

    ABB has won orders from the Ministry of Electricity in Iraq to deliver five fixed and 15 mobile 132 kilovolt substations that will help strengthen the power grid and provide electricity in central Iraq. The government of Iraq is rebuilding the country and investing in its grid as part of its ambitious plan to develop […]

  • Swift (and Angry) Reaction to Trump Move to Save Coal, Nuclear Plants

    Reactions from U.S. energy and legal and regulatory groups began pouring in minutes after the White House confirmed on June 1 that President Trump has directed the Department of Energy (DOE) to act immediately to stop the loss of uneconomic coal and nuclear plants.  White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in a June 1 […]

  • Renewable Growth Soars, Buoyed by Distributed Generation

    Nameplate renewable capacity surged to more than 2,000 GW worldwide at the end of 2016, constituting more than 28% of total generating capacity (Figure 6). Most (56%) was hydropower, followed by wind (23%), and then solar, mostly from photovoltaic (PV) at about 15%. According to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) the expansion was fueled […]

  • Disaster Response: How Power Generators Prepare to Weather the Storm

    Natural disasters can strike anywhere, and the events of recent years—hurricanes, flooding rains, bomb cyclones—have ramped up the efforts of utilities to prepare for extreme weather. Power companies are

  • The Shift from Coal to Biomass Is on in Europe

    Various schemes are underway in Europe as nations use existing coal-fired power plants to generate electricity without coal as the feedstock. With rising carbon prices, some big utilities are repowering with

  • Developments in Energy Storage Could Spell the End of the Duck Curve

    The duck curve is named for its resemblance to a duck, with its peaks and valleys highlighting the effect solar production has on the power demanded from thermal generators and hydropower resources throughout

  • The Power Grid’s Great Transition

    POWER has been reporting for many years on changes taking place in the power generation mix around the globe. Renewable energy, such as wind and solar generation, has been growing steadily in most parts of the

  • Hybrid Energy Storage System Gets First-of-Its-Kind Certification

    Geothermal energy is a growth business. Several countries, such as Kenya and Indonesia, are rich in geothermal resources, and others such as Chile, Mexico, and the Philippines are looking to rapidly develop

  • Novel Geothermal Power Technology Being Deployed in Canada

    In a bid to tamp down pollution, India’s government in December 2015 notified the country’s coal generators they would need to meet—for the first time—new emissions limits for nitrogen oxides (NOx)

  • POWER Digest [June 2018]

    Marking an important milestone in energy storage’s steady charge to become a key element in balancing variability posed by renewables, ACCIONA Energia has received a prototype certificate from DNV GL for a

  • Using Artificial Intelligence to Develop Electricity Load Forecasts

    Electricity is produced by a variety of generating units, each with different lead times and costs to be readied for service, and production costs once brought online. Because electricity is a commodity that

  • Power in Africa: Prospects for an Economic Foothold

    To sustain unprecedented economic growth, lift hundreds of millions out of poverty, and attract investment, African countries are taking bold steps to expand electricity infrastructure. Are the continent’s

  • Power Plant Efficiency: A Key to Profitable Performance

    Building power plants is only the first step to generating success. Running plants efficiently, and consistently improving efficiency as they run, is the path to putting profits on the bottom line. Building

  • DHYBRID partners with QOS Energy to monitor PV hybrid and energy storage off-grid plants

    Nantes, France (May 2018) — DHYBRID, the leading German solution provider for PV hybrid, energy storage and smart-grid projects, has announced its partnership with QOS Energy, the data intelligence cloud specialist, to monitor PV hybrid and energy storage plants. DHYBRID will benefit from the versatility of QOS Energy’s monitoring software, which is unique in its ability to aggregate […]

  • Constellation, GE Team With The Home Depot to Install Largest Rooftop Solar Array in Washington, D.C.

    Washington, D.C. (May 30, 2018) — Constellation, an Exelon company, and GE today announced the completion of a 554 kilowatt (DC) solar generation project for The Home Depot’s Washington, D.C., store. The solar project, now the largest single rooftop array in the District*, is expected to supply more than 9.9 million kilowatt hours of electricity […]

  • Financial close of Netherlands’ largest PV solar power plant

    Berlin, Germany, Vlissingen and Borsele, Netherlands (May 30, 2018) — German-based company ib vogt, advised by Netherlands-based company Solarfields, and HSH Nordbank successfully reached financial close over a EUR 41 million debt facility for a solar power plant. HSH Nordbank provides the non-recourse project financing for the 54.5-MWp Solarpark Scaldia, located in the municipalities of […]

  • SHARP LAUNCHES NEW PV PANEL AT INTERSOLAR 2018

    Installation of 11.6 MW Sharp PV Panels by Aldo Energy in Turkey Hamburg, 30 May 2018 – At Intersolar 2018, Sharp Energy Solutions will present its expanded product portfolio of PV panels and energy management systems, and discuss the recent completion of an extensive project. Sharp launches new high-performance 275W PV panel (ND-RJ275) Sharp will […]

  • Second installation phase at Holyhead Deep completed

    Marine energy developer Minesto has completed the second offshore installation phase of its DG500 project in Wales. Having installed the tether, micro grid system buoy and umbilical, all supporting components and systems needed to deliver the power produced by Minesto’s first system of the unique Deep Green technology in Utility Scale are now in place. […]

  • Exelon: Record Amount of Nuclear Capacity Failed to Clear PJM Auction

    Exelon Corp.’s Three Mile Island, Dresden, and all but a small portion of its Byron nuclear plants failed to clear PJM Interconnection’s latest annual capacity auction—despite an average 83% surge in capacity prices compared to last year. While coal and gas made moderate gains, demand response, energy efficiency, wind, and solar emerged as the auction’s […]