Renewables

Reaching an unexpected climate breakthrough, the U.S. and China in a joint statement on Wednesday each announced new targets to slash carbon dioxide emissions by 2030.  President Barack Obama set a new target to cut U.S. carbon emissions between 26% and 28% below 2005 levels by 2025. Chinese leader Xi Jinping, meanwhile, said his country […]

On Nov. 5, The Babcock & Wilcox Co. (B&W) announced that its board of directors has unanimously approved a plan for the tax-free spin-off of the company’s power generation business to B&W’s shareholders, in the process forming two independently traded companies. In its third-quarter earnings call the following day, company executives emphasized that the two […]

A federal court in Michigan on Oct. 31 dismissed the $950 million antitrust suit filed against three Chinese solar photovoltaic (PV) panel manufacturers by bankrupt firm Energy Conversion Devices (ECD). ECD, which at one time was the world’s largest manufacturer of thin-film solar panels, was forced into Chapter 7 liquidation in 2012 after Chinese firms […]

The decision to eliminate coal-fired power plants and the implementation of an aggressive feed-in tariff program puts Ontario’s electricity system in the spotlight. Download a pdf of this sponsored report, written by Global Business Reports: GBR_ONTARIO_PWR_1114_sm

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) serves as the gatekeeper to wholesale power markets in interstate commerce. The process to obtain and retain authority to sell into these markets at market-based rates (MBR) can be onerous. Any failure to fully comply with FERC’s regulations could result in participation restrictions and civil penalties of up to […]

This August, in a bid to bolster its latent geothermal energy industry, Indonesia passed new laws that allow geothermal exploration in protected areas such as forests. Located in the Ring of Fire—a string of volcanoes and fault lines around the Pacific Basin—the archipelago has estimated potential geothermal resources of up to 29 GW. State power […]

India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) in September issued a proposal to vastly increase the county’s reliance on solar photovoltaic (PV) generation, taking installed capacity from its current 2.6 GW to more than 20 GW over the next five years. Following on the nation’s ambitious-but-troubled ultra-mega coal plant build-out—only one has come online, […]

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released a notice of data availability (NODA)—making additional information and ideas available for public comment—and it has also proposed carbon goals for areas in Indian Country and U.S. territories. Janet McCabe, acting assistant administrator for the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, explained the two actions related to […]

Meeting in Brussels, Belgium, Oct. 23–24, the European Council (EC) agreed on the 2030 climate and energy policy framework for the European Union (EU), calling on all countries to come forward with ambitious targets and policies. The EC endorsed a binding EU target of at least a 40% reduction in domestic greenhouse gas emissions by […]

Before the polar vortex earlier this year, several severe cold weather events had presented comparable power generation operational challenges. POWER ranks those events here in terms of loss of generation capacity. Common themes observed in both severe and lesser cold weather incidents involve constraints on natural gas fuel supplies to generating plants, and generating unit […]

Last winter’s polar vortex was a reminder that, despite several years of mild winters, colder months can still pack a wallop. Decades of coal, gas, and nuclear plant operations have taught plant operators

Arizona-based solar photovoltaic (PV) system provider First Solar in August said it had achieved a cadmium-telluride (CdTe) PV research cell conversion efficiency of 21%—a world record. The thin-film PV

Unbundled Renewable Energy Credits and the Benefits of Standardization Unbundled renewable energy credits and certificates (RECs) separate the renewable, or green, component of energy from the actual

Kelly Speakes-Backman Every day there is increasing evidence that we need to accelerate our nation’s transition to a cleaner energy infrastructure. The American Climate Prospectus released by the Risky

Several countries and companies at the United Nations (UN) Climate Summit 2014 in New York City pledged action to address climate change by slashing carbon emissions, mobilizing funding, or putting a price on carbon.  The one-day event on Tuesday was designed to raise political momentum and spur transformative action ahead of COP 21, the December […]

A coalition of four companies are proposing to build a 2.1-GW, $8 billion project that would comprise the world’s largest wind farm in Wyoming, a huge compressed-air energy storage (CAES) system in Utah, and a 525-mile transmission line that would supply up to 9.2 TWh per year of electricity to Southern California. Pathfinder Renewable Wind […]

Regulators from six states shared starkly different views on the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) proposed carbon rules for existing power plants at a House hearing on Tuesday. Some state-level officials said the EPA’s overall emission targets and suggested means to achieve them are based on unworkable and unrealistic assumptions about how state and regional power […]

The Montana Public Service Commission (MPSC) on Sept. 4 approved Northwestern Energy Corp.’s request to purchase 11 hydroelectric power plants in the state from PPL Montana for $880 million. The plants, which comprise PPL Montana’s entire hydroelectric profile, total 630 MW of generation. Nine are run-of-river plants; the other two, the Mystic Lake Dam in […]

The Aug. 4–6 U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit shed light on the power plights faced by sub-Saharan African countries, but it also highlighted their massive power potential and the array of solutions under consideration to resolve Africa’s energy crisis. Here are a number of key insights gleaned from discussions at the summit—the first a U.S. president has […]

Australia in July became the first nation to abolish a price on carbon, after the Senate passed the Abbott government’s repeal bills by a vote of 39–32. Yet the country’s carbon conundrum continues because Prime Minister Tony Abbott must still get his Direct Action Plan, a proposed replacement for the country’s emissions trading scheme, to […]

EU Doles Out €1 Billion in Funding for Renewable Projects Under NER 300. The European Commission on July 10 awarded €1 billion ($1.34 billion) to 19 renewable energy projects and a carbon capture and storage (CCS) project under its NER 300 program. The projects will cumulatively raise European Union (EU) renewable energy production by about […]

Despite stagnant economic growth globally, primary energy consumption surged in 2013, with growth for nuclear power and renewables in power generation expanding at above-average rates, BP said in its recently released Statistical Review of World Energy 2014. According to the report, world power generation grew 2.5% in 2013, slightly up over 2012 (which saw 2.2% […]

Geothermal generation is clean, renewable, and cost-effective over the long term, and the U.S. has vast untapped geothermal resources. So why is it still operating on the sidelines?   For the U.S. geothermal energy industry, 2013 ended on a positive note. Cyrq Energy’s Dale Burgett geothermal plant, a 4-MW unit in southwest New Mexico, began […]

The El Arrayán Wind facility—located about 250 miles north of Santiago on the Chilean coast—was officially opened on Aug. 26 during a ceremony that included Chile’s president, Michelle Bachelet. “El Arrayán is the biggest wind farm in Chile and we are pleased at what we can achieve when we use the natural resources the earth […]

Geographically and politically, Texas and Germany are on opposite sides of the world, but both believe strongly in competitive energy markets, and both have largely deregulated their power industries. Now both are reconsidering their market designs. Its easy to think that Germany and Texas could not be more different. One is northern, cold, and Old […]

A significant reform of Germany’s aggressive renewable energy laws passed its final hurdle on July 11, setting the country on a more market-based path toward future growth. The bill was developed and approved by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition government of Social Democrats and Christian Democrats. Because they are the two largest parties, the legislation was […]

The 2014 POWER Plant of the Year makes history, both as a project and as our cover story. The Plant of the Year award goes to the most interesting, usually new, plant in the previous year. Sometimes it’s a

Zeng Ming, Duan Jinhui, Wang Liang, Gu Shanshan In 2013, urbanization in China reached 53.73%. Urbanization has become an important field for national reform. On the one hand, urbanization is effective for

California has set an ambitious target of connecting 1.3 GW of energy storage to the grid by 2020. In October 2013, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) mandated that 200 MW of this goal come in

Consensus is that the locus of world energy demand has shifted away from the U.S. and Europe to Asia, driven by the soaring economies of the 10 countries that make up the Association of Southeast Asian Nations