Supply Chains

  • AI Data Centers Turn to Industrial Boilers and Steam Turbines for Power

    Artificial intelligence (AI) data centers are being built at an unprecedented pace. There are more than 12,000 active projects in the U.S. currently seeking grid interconnection representing 1,570 GW of generator capacity and 1,030 GW of energy storage. Analyst firm Omdia predicts that AI will drive more than 50% of installed power generation capacity over […]

  • Can U.S. High-Voltage Grid Equipment Supply Keep Pace With 765-kV Expansion and Data Center Demand?

    From two-year bushing lead times and hyperscaler demand to U.S. manufacturing expansion and the emerging 765-kV build-out, Trench Group CEO Bahadir Basdere explains where high-voltage equipment supply is under the most pressure. High-voltage grid components are becoming a critical constraint as utilities, transmission developers, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), and hyperscalers compete for equipment needed to […]

  • Three Questions Every Utility Should Ask About Advanced Reactors

    The U.S. power grid is entering a period unlike any it has experienced in decades. Rapid electrification, domestic manufacturing, and the exponential growth of artificial intelligence are reshaping electricity demand. A recent report from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, projects that data centers alone could account for between 9.5% […]

  • Saeul 3’s Nine-Year Nuclear Odyssey to Operation

    Saeul 3 is the latest evolution of South Korea’s APR1400 program, completed after an extraordinary interruption in national nuclear policy, fortified during construction to address newer safety requirements

  • Ansaldo Returns to U.S. Gas Turbine Market as Equipment Crunch Widens Supplier Field

    A widening gas turbine supply crunch has prompted Ansaldo Energia to explore a new path back into the U.S. generation market after more than 30 years. The Italian manufacturer will supply California-based

  • Matching Fasteners to the Application: Five Quality Controls

    According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the domestic power system is facing mounting pressure from growing electricity demand, a backlog of generation interconnection requests, and an aging transmission

  • The Janus Five: 20+ Commercial Nuclear Microreactors, Starting in 2028

    Five advanced nuclear companies will build, own, and operate more than 20 commercial nuclear microreactors across five U.S. Army installations under the Janus Program, a milestone-based effort designed to place the first project into useful service by September 2028 and establish repeatable commercial products. In exclusive interviews, the selected companies told POWER they intend to use the […]

  • Energy Security During Uncertainty: Why Hydrogen Power Matters More Than Ever

    The global energy landscape is experiencing increased uncertainty. Recent geopolitical tensions have created volatility in oil and gas markets, highlighted vulnerabilities in global supply chains, and renewed attention on energy security. While these events often dominate headlines, the effects extend far beyond energy producers and governments. For businesses that depend upon reliable power to keep […]

  • The Power Sector’s New Constraint Isn’t Demand—It’s Everything Else

    For most of the last two decades, the anxiety in power planning was about demand: would consumption grow fast enough to justify new capacity, and how would an aging fleet keep pace? That question has inverted. Demand is no longer the uncertain variable—it is the one thing forecasters are confident about. The uncertainty now sits […]

  • Is the Power Project Crunch Upending the Owner—EPC Model?

    Developers and contractors at a recent event described how the generation buildout is forcing earlier engineering, procurement, and construction contractor involvement; deeper supply-chain tracking; repeatable

  • America Needs a Fifth Nuclear Executive Order

    President Trump’s four nuclear executive orders issued on May 23, 2025, represented a historic liftoff for American nuclear energy. COMMENTARY As electricity demand surges, geopolitical energy competition intensifies, and America’s power infrastructure faces mounting strain, the administration acted decisively. It recognized that American energy dominance—and leadership in the digital age—requires a resurgence of nuclear reactor […]

  • Modernizing the Plant That Powers 40% of Kyrgyzstan

    GE Vernova modernized four hydro units at the plant that supplies roughly 40% of Kyrgyzstan’s electricity—without ever taking the plant fully offline. The project is a POWER Top Plant award finalist. When

  • A Water Plant That Happens to Make Power: Inside the Moccasin Rewind

    At a 57-year-old hydro plant where the real product is drinking water for 2.7 million people, GE Vernova replaced two original generators on a four-month outage window—proving that reliability, not output

  • Public Power’s Affordability Edge Faces Its Hardest Test in Years

    For decades, the pitch for community-owned electric utilities has been simple enough to fit on a bill insert: lower rates, reliable service, and decisions made close to home. The numbers still back that up. What has changed, according to Scott Corwin, president and CEO of the American Public Power Association (APPA), is the difficulty of […]

  • On-Demand Webinar: Simplifying real-time natural gas monitoring with integrated process Raman and flow measurement

    Sponsored by:
    Thermo Fisher Scientific

    This webinar explores an integrated approach to natural gas monitoring that combines real-time, in-line process Raman spectroscopy with advanced flow measurement and control. Process Raman technology provides continuous gas composition and heating value (BTU) measurements, while the flow computer platform delivers standardized flow calculations, operational monitoring, and remote visibility from wellhead to pipeline. Attendees will […]

  • Soltec Touts PFE-Compliant Certification for Solar Trackers

    Soltec has announced that it is now able to provide PFE-compliant certification for its U.S. SFOne and SF7 series 1P and 2P trackers, reinforcing the company’s ability to support utility-scale solar projects in the U.S. under the new regulatory and market conditions.

  • In a First for Advanced Nuclear: Siemens Energy Turbine Package Advances for Oklo’s Aurora-INL

    The steam turbine and generator package for Oklo’s first Aurora powerhouse at Idaho National Laboratory (INL)—a pioneering application of a commercially established industrial turbine platform at the heart of a first-of-a-kind advanced reactor’s conventional island—is in active production at Siemens Energy’s facilities in Görlitz and Erfurt, Germany. In details provided to POWER, both companies confirmed the […]

  • Beating the Transformer Bottleneck: Remanufacturing, Build-to-Stock, and Smart Procurement

    Sponsored by:
    Maddox Industrial Transformer

    Grid operators, utilities, and project developers are facing several enormous demands at once. They’re being asked to deliver capacity for a wave of new load from data centers, electric vehicle (EV) charging networks, and electrified buildings, while at the same time integrating a record pipeline of new generation from utility-scale solar, wind, and battery storage. […]

  • MD&A Positions Itself as Alternative Source for 7FA and 7EA Gas Turbine Rotor Life Extensions

    With hundreds of 7FA and 7EA gas turbines approaching end-of-life thresholds and industry-wide constraints on forgings and shop capacity, MD&A has invested a decade in reverse engineering, supply chain development, and production of rotor components to offer utilities an independent path forward. The gas turbine bubble of 2000 to 2004 saw between 600 and 700 […]

  • How American-Made Steel Supports Oil & Gas, Nuclear and Renewable Energy Growth

    Sponsored by:
    Nucor

    Global energy demand is outpacing supply, driving the need for expanded and more reliable infrastructure across oil and gas, nuclear, and renewable energy systems. Steel is essential to building and connecting this infrastructure, delivering the strength, durability, and performance required to operate in extreme environments and at scale. American-made steel provides consistent quality, material traceability, […]

  • Modernizing the Grid: Building with Domestic EAF Steel

    Sponsored by:
    Nucor

    The U.S. electrical grid is aging and under increasing strain from rising energy demand driven by technologies like data centers and electrification, making modernization urgent. Much of the current infrastructure is outdated, with many transmission lines nearing the end of their lifespan and relying on less durable materials like wood. Modernizing this infrastructure requires stronger, […]

  • TerraPower’s Kemmerer 1 Enters Construction: Timeline of the Natrium Project’s Road to First Power

    TerraPower’s Natrium reactor at Kemmerer, Wyoming, reached official construction start on April 23, 2026. Here’s a full timeline from ARDP selection to construction start. TerraPower on April 23, 2026, officially started construction on Kemmerer Unit 1, its flagship Natrium sodium-cooled fast reactor plant in Kemmerer, Wyoming—a milestone that marks the most consequential step yet in […]

  • Making Solar Truly Sustainable: The Case for Recycling End of Life Panels

    Leading corporations are advancing their sustainability goals by investing in renewable energy, particularly through community solar credits that support both environmental and social impact. This trend follows the ever-growing solar market, driven by new production contracted by these large companies and utilities, businesses, and residential solar panel users. But to be sustainable, there’s more to […]

  • Rural Co-ops Navigate a New Era of Load Growth, Rising Costs, and Policy Pressure

    After decades of relatively flat electricity demand, the U.S. power sector is suddenly racing to keep up—and rural electric cooperatives, which serve 42 million people across 54% of the nation’s land mass, are feeling the squeeze as acutely as anyone. As a guest on The POWER Podcast, Jim Matheson, CEO of the National Rural Electric […]

  • Electron Beam Welding: Unlocking a New Era for Heavy Section Nuclear Components

    For more than a decade, EPRI has been collaborating across the global supply chain to mature a technology that has the potential to fundamentally change how large nuclear components are manufactured. With the release of EPRI’s Quick Insights: Electron Beam Welding for Heavy Section Components, we now have a clear picture of how far electron […]

  • Cracking the Power Supply Chain Code

    The power industry finds itself in an uncomfortable bind. Demand for electricity is surging, driven by data center buildouts, broad electrification, and the retirement of aging coal fleets, but the equipment

  • The Magnet Blind Spot in America’s Industrial Strategy

    Washington, D.C., has spent the past five years fixating on rare earths—where they’re mined, how they’re processed, and who controls the magnet supply chain. That attention is overdue. But the national conversation still stops one link too soon. The real compounding bottleneck isn’t just the magnets, it’s the motors and drives that use those magnets—traction […]

  • Engine Power Plants Surge as Data Centers Drive Unprecedented Demand

    Manufacturers respond with gigawatt-scale deployments, fast-start technology, and expanded production capacity. The global appetite for electricity has never been more insatiable, and at the heart of this

  • The Clock Is Ticking on 7FA Gas Turbine Rotors

    Operators of aging F-class units face a narrowing window to plan for rotor life extensions as supply chains tighten and demand surges. The late 1990s and early 2000s marked a frenetic period in American power generation. Deregulation opened the floodgates for independent power producers racing to bring quick-build gas turbine plants online. GE’s 7FA and […]

  • ERMCO Expands Transformer Manufacturing West with New Arizona Facility

    The distribution transformer manufacturer’s first plant west of the Mississippi River will add three-phase production capacity to address ongoing supply constraints. Distribution transformer manufacturer ERMCO announced Jan. 21 it will open a new manufacturing facility in Maricopa County, Arizona—the company’s first expansion west of the Mississippi River. The 566,121-square-foot plant in Waddell, approximately 30 miles […]