Research and Development

After Hurricane Michael made landfall near Mexico Beach, Florida, as a category 4 storm on October 10, it moved across Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and southeastern Virginia on October 11, and finally out into the Atlantic on October 12. According to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Infrastructure Security and Energy Restoration office, the storm […]

The Jackson Hole Center for Global Affairs—a bipartisan think tank—will host the “Jackson Hole Global Forum: Climate Solutions, Coal Communities, and Economic Diversification,” in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, November 8–9, 2018. Among the sessions on day one is a panel titled “What Is Coal’s Future?” Charles K. Ebinger, nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council, will […]

GE’s Global Research Center and Nuclear fuel business partnering with three National Labs (Los Alamos, Oak Ridge and Idaho) and with the Exelon and Southern Company utilities to develop and test more advanced fuel rod technologies Project will tap Global Research’s deep technical strength in materials science, 3D printing and jet engine technologies to develop […]

A subsidiary of grid operator PJM Interconnection has joined with a Switzerland-based group to build and evaluate a blockchain-based tool to help the U.S. power generation industry. Energy Web Foundation (EWF) and PJM Environmental Information Services (PJM-EIS) on October 25 said they would collaborate on developing and testing a reference implementation of EWF’s open-source Energy […]

Unit 1 at the Haiyang nuclear power plant in Shandong, China, successfully completed a 168-hour full-power continuous operation test, meeting the requirement for commercial operation, State Power Investment Corp. Ltd. announced on October 23. Its AP1000 reactor is the first nuclear unit to be placed in operation in Shandong, an eastern province on the Yellow […]

ETB (Electrical Turbo Blower) raises exhaust-gas pressure to overcome the pressure difference between exhaust gas and scavenging air receiver by actively controlling the exhaust gas flow; strategic step to bring development in-house; design focuses on cost-optimisation and compactness MAN Energy Solutions has launched its new EGR (Exhaust Gas Recirculation) electrical turbo blower – designated ETB40 […]

In today’s dynamic and fast changing power generation market, gas turbine power plant operators are demanding solutions for their newly installed and existing assets to provide unprecedented and ‘future-proof’ operational flexibility in order to optimize their ability to profit from changing regulatory & fuel-switching driven paradigms. With subsidies and regulatory mandates driving the introduction of […]

BlackEnergy, the malware used in a cyberattack that prompted a large-scale blackout in Ukraine in December 2015, has a successor—GreyEnergy. A group is using the malware to target industrial networks outside Ukraine, researchers  from Slovakian cybersecurity firm ESET warn.  The researchers said in an October 17–released white paper that analysis of the previously undocumented GreyEnergy […]

First ground has been broken on a 10-MW pilot of a novel supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) technology, a $119 million project that will refine the sCO2 power cycle and demonstrate component performance and scalability.  Construction of the Supercritical Transformational Electric Power (STEP) pilot plant at the 15-acre facility at Southwest Research Institute’s (SwRI’s) San Antonio, […]

Test Your Knowledge The quizzes provided here offer an easy way to test your knowledge of various power-related subjects. If you want to learn more about the quiz topics, follow links to articles from the POWER archive, which are provided on each individual quiz webpage. Competitive Maintenance Strategies Quiz https://www.powermag.com/test-your-knowledge-competitive-maintenance-strategies/ Scaffold Safety Quiz https://www.powermag.com/test-your-knowledge-scaffold-safety/ Monitoring and Treatment of Closed-Loop […]

Below is a list from the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) of all its large-scale coal demonstration projects, starting with the most recent, with a link to each respective project landing page.  In a report prepared for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources that was released on October 1, 2018, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) says […]

Nearly half of the $2.66 billion spent by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) since 2010 to develop advanced fossil energy technologies was dedicated to nine carbon capture and storage (CCS) demonstration projects—but only three were active at the end of 2017, and only one was at a power plant. In a report prepared for […]

ATLANTA, Georgia (Oct. 3, 2018) — Siemens is acquiring the specialized software company Electrocon International Inc. (EII) to uniquely enhance simulations of power grids and strengthen the company’s electrical digital twin efforts. EII, based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, develops and markets CAPE (Computer-Aided Protection Engineering) software which focuses on the protection of electricity systems and […]

Natural gas combined cycle, wind, and residential solar photovoltaic technologies may be the least-expensive way to generate power across a wide swathe of the U.S., an interactive map published and recently updated by the University of Texas (UT) at Austin’s Energy Institute shows.  The interactive chart (Version 1.4.0, retrieved on October 4, 2018), first published […]

DHAKA, Bangladesh (October 1, 2018) — In its continued efforts to provide the most advanced energy solutions to Bangladesh, GE Power (NYSE: GE) today announced that it has been selected by Unique Group, to develop the 600 megawatt (MW) natural gas based combined cycle power plant at Meghnaghat, near Dhaka, Bangladesh. Unique Meghnaghat Power Limited […]

Corrosion products can form quickly in power plant systems if water, air, and metal are allowed to occupy the same space. Localized corrosion can take any of several distinct forms, such as stress corrosion

Lead analyst Stephen Tusa lowered J.P. Morgan’s rating on GE stock after “checks on two initial U.S. installations revealed failures of the first stage blade of GE’s H-frame gas turbine,” thestreet.com reported on September 20. Tusa—who has long been critical of GE’s prospects—reportedly wrote, “The impact on ‘asset value’ from a failure at GE’s U.S. […]

At this moment, the lights are on around the country in homes and workplaces.  Most don’t realize, perhaps take it for granted, that those lights come on because of the hard work of dispatchers operating one of the most important manmade systems ever built, the national electric power grid. Without oversimplifying the process too much, […]

Siemens and E.ON have reached a significant milestone in the area of 3D-printing for the energy sector. The world’s first 3-D printed burner for an SGT-700 gas turbine has been in operation for one year at E.ON’s combined cycle power plant in Philippsthal in the German state of Hessen and the results are impressive. The […]

  Scientists appear to have unraveled the mystery of uranium ore found at a mine in Oklo region of the Central African state of Gabon that exhibits a lower proportion of uranium-235 (U-235)—the fissile sort. According to an August 10 bulletin from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the first response that physicists had when […]

Terrestrial Energy USA, a company that is developing a fourth-generation molten salt nuclear reactor, has joined forces with Southern Co. and several U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) national labs, in a research and development (R&D) project that seeks to pin down whether its reactor technology can produce hydrogen efficiently using nuclear heat and power.  The […]

The Solar Energy Industries Association, the national trade association for the U.S. solar industry, reports that solar power has grown in the U.S. at a compounded annual rate of 59% since the solar investment

Though tidal energy is still considered by many to be in its nascent stages, power generated from turbines harnessing fast tidal flows in the same way wind turbines catch the wind has entered the commercial

Energy industry experts speaking at the MEGA Symposium in Baltimore, Maryland, on August 21 agreed that storage is becoming more important to the overall mix of U.S. power sources. They also said utility-scale storage solutions remain “years away,” even as technology advancements in battery systems occur more rapidly. Panelists at the session entitled “The Transformation […]

OAKLAND, Calif. (August 7, 2018)—California can retire at least 28 of its natural gas plants because they are no longer needed to meet the state’s electricity needs nor its carbon emissions reduction goals, according to an analysis released today by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). The study analyzed the operations of all 89 natural gas plants […]

High-voltage power contractor Smith Brothers has secured an Independent Connection Provider (ICP) contract with sustainable energy specialist P3P Partners, marking the electrical engineering firm’s first foray into the fast-growing combined heat and power (CHP) market. A leading provider of CHP services, P3P develops energy-efficient centres across the UK and has previously delivered state-of-the-art solutions to […]

AUSTIN, Texas, Aug. 7, 2018 — SparkCognition, a global artificial intelligence (AI) company, announced its collaboration with Siemens to deploy SparkCognition’s AI solutions on MindSphere, the Internet of Things (IoT) operating system from Siemens. SparkCognition is also joining the global MindSphere Partner Program, which will further enable them to enhance operations for companies in the Industrial IoT (IIoT) market. “SparkCognition […]

Maintaining a reliable supply of power in Delhi, India, has been a major issue for the area as local demand for electricity continues to increase. The city in June repeatedly set new records for electricity

The Samcheok Green Power Plant requires less maintenance and is more cost-effective than conventional coal plants, and more environmentally friendly with its use of once-through ultrasupercritical boilers

A patented Fluidized Bed Steam Reforming (FBSR) technology uses superheated steam—instead of an open flame—and mineralizing additives to treat and immobilize radionuclides in a water-insoluble matrix