Solar

World’s largest PV plant now in Portugal; latan 2 construction may resume; Allegheny to scrub Fort Martin plant; TVA will clean up big Dutch CC plant; Connecticut blesses six fuel cell projects; DOE approves IGCC plant in Florida; FERC relicenses Osage hydro plant; A nanotech perpetual motion machine?; POWER digest

DOE walks the clean coal talk / For Swedish nuke, a case of mistaken identity / Siemens completes big CHP plant / E.ON bets big on coal / BP Solar expands Maryland plant / GE scores big turbine deals / PSNH switches from coal to wood / EPRI tests solid-state current limiter / POWER digest

Following the money invested in projects is a viable way to compare growth trends for power projects using the four major generation types: coal, natural gas, nuclear, and renewable.

First live superconducting cable / Biggest CO2 storage project / Largest hydrogen-fueled plants / Record run for fuel cell cogen system / Largest PV plant still in Bavaria / Luz returns to U.S. / POWER digest

The length of term allowed for power sales contracts is a critical determinant of the ability of states to meet their increasingly ambitious renewable power targets. Many utilities advocate limiting terms to 10 or perhaps 15 years for renewable energy contracts, emphasizing the "flexibility" that shorter terms offer. In contrast, contract terms of 20 or […]

The world’s largest solar electric system was dedicated in June 2005 in Mühlhausen, Germany. The 10-MW system comprises three separate but interconnected photovoltaic parks in different cities that use an innovative sun-tracking system to maximize their outputs. After one year of operation, all three parks are still going strong—as you’d expect, due to their dearth of moving parts.

We tend to forget that today’s super-sized power plant designs began life as small prototypes that grew in size only as fast as technology and economics allowed. Arizona Public Service, a long-time leader in solar energy development, has invested in the development of one such technology that is compatible with the sunny Southwest and certain to become more cost-competitive in the near future. This successful demonstration of a 1-MW concentrated solar power, trough-style energy system is the first to have put power on the grid since 1988. But it certainly won’t be the last.

In an effort to tap the significant solar energy resources of New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California, Utah, Texas, and Colorado, the U.S. DOE will support efforts to install a total of 1,000 MW of concentrating solar power (CSP) systems over the next five years. "This initiative will provide a substantial engine for economic development, job […]

  Renewable power development will continue to grow in the U.S., with the nonhydro total reaching 53,121 MW by the end of 2016. So predicts a soon-to-be-released report from Boulder, Colo.–based Platts Analytics (which, like POWER, is a part of Platts, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies). If all that capacity goes on-line, it would […]

  Sun drives pistons and generator Sandia National Laboratories is joining forces with Stirling Energy Systems Inc. (SES) of Phoenix to test and develop new solar dish-engine systems. Five new systems installed at Sandia’s National Solar Thermal Test Facility in New Mexico joined a prototype Stirling system that was erected earlier in 2004. The six-dish […]