Technology

The shift from energy consumers to prosumers is fundamentally changing the relationship between utilities and their customers. Behind-the-meter distributed energy resources (DERs) transform the ways households consume, generate, and store power. In the U.S., there are now about 15 million smart thermostats, 2 million solar installations, and 1.5 million electric vehicles (EVs) on the road. And […]

In light of the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, the energy industry saw surplus supply and a change in usage patterns in 2020, to which it had to adapt painfully. Utility crews had to deal with a tedious hurricane season, with socially distant, limited staff. Artificial intelligence (AI) could have played a role in prioritizing essential tasks […]

Operational technology (OT) electronics and networks for manufacturing, energy production, and virtually every other industrial application, are targets for cyberattacks. For infrastructure-related companies, such as power producers, transportation, and water plants, the OT networks are not only the revenue producers, but also important targets for destabilizing national security. Successful attacks can be destructive and costly, […]

The search for more efficient methods of power generation at a time when climate change is top of mind continues to foster innovation. A U.S. company is among the latest to release a new technology, with development of a self-contained generator that doesn’t run on fossil fuels and works on the premise that once created, […]

The Department of Energy (DOE) has issued a “prohibition order” in line with President Trump’s May 2020 broad bulk power system (BPS) security executive order (EO 13920) that will ban some utility procurement of specific grid equipment from China.  When it takes effect on Jan. 16, 2021, the Dec. 17–issued “Prohibition Order Securing Critical Defense […]

The Department of Energy (DOE) has chosen five assorted advanced nuclear reactor concepts under the second Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP) risk reduction pathway. TerraPower and X-energy, which the DOE chose to support under the first ARDP pathway, are looking at siting their advanced nuclear demonstrations in Washington State, the DOE said.  The ARDP program, which […]

FOLSOM, CALIFORNIA, DEC 2020 —THE SILICON PARTNERS, INC. today announced that it has joined Google Cloud Partner Program as a Services partner. This allows The Silicon Partners, Inc. (TSP) to assist their customers in moving to, building, and working in the smarter cloud. TSP would leverage this collaboration to provide customers the ability to create […]

MENOMONEE FALLS, Wis. (December 10, 2020) – When Marc Maguire, assistant professor of construction programs at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, started testing the strength of piles made by Nucor and used in the support assemblies of solar panels, he didn’t expect such surprising results. These tests ― conducted by the Durham School of Architectural Engineering […]

A distributed energy power plant, designed to help bring more reliability to California’s power grid, is being developed by a company whose investors include Alphabet, the parent company of Google. The project when fully developed would be the world’s largest residential virtual power plant (VPP). Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners (SIP), a group that builds, owns, operates, […]

Wuppertal, in the German state of Nordrhein Westfahlen, is the home to the Schwebebahn. This suspended railway (Figure 1) is unique in Germany and passengers use the transportation system for 25 million journeys per year. Today, 120 years after Wuppertal’s Schwebebahn opened, the city is still innovating. Green hydrogen produced from power generated by incineration […]

DECEMBER 7, 2020 — The technology group Wärtsilä’s highly successful and super-efficient Wärtsilä 31DF dual-fuel engine is being upgraded to increase even further its power output. The higher power output will be available within the same dimensions as previously, thereby delivering greater performance within the same physical footprint. At the same time, the already low […]

As long as products have had ethernet ports, people have been asking for remote access to them. They believed they could just plug the devices into the internet, and it would all work. At first, there wasn’t necessarily a clear path to making this dream a reality without assistance from the user’s IT department. IT […]

SANTA ANA, CA (December 3, 2020) – GreenStruxure, the joint venture between Schneider Electric and Huck Capital, is teaming up with Instant ON, one of California’s leading microgrid integrators and developers. Both organizations announced today they are joining forces to meet the immediate needs of California building owners and operators for cost-effective, resilient, reliable and […]

According to Cheryl Farrow, CEO of the Ontario Association of Certified Engineering Technicians and Technologists (OACETT), there are three basic pillars that make up the engineering field. They are licensed engineers, technicians and technologists, and skilled trades. “We can’t be successful without all three of these pillars working together effectively,” Farrow said as a guest […]

RWE Generation will install 11 units of GE Gas Power’s freshly launched LM2500XPRESS power plant technology to provide a critical gas-power reserve in Germany’s reliability-challenged southern region.  The project will debut GE’s LM2500XPRESS, a “plug-and-play” power plant model it launched in January 2020 that features pre-packaged LM2500 aeroderivative gas turbines. Delivered in a simplified set […]

The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW) has approved the American Nuclear Infrastructure Act of 2020 (ANIA), just two weeks after it was introduced. Among the bill’s major provisions are that it will seek to  strengthen the nuclear fuel supply chain, help incentivize commercial deployment of new reactor designs, and create a credit […]

Another small modular reactor (SMR) design is moving closer to commercial operation after achieving a licensing milestone. GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH), which is designing the BWRX-300 SMR, on Dec. 1 said the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has issued a final safety evaluation report for the first of several licensing topical reports (LTRs) submitted […]

MUNICH, Germany (Dec. 1, 2020) — Siemens Energy has been selected by MHI Vestas Offshore Wind (MHI Vestas) to deliver 114 low-loss 66kV distribution transformers for the Seagreen Offshore Wind Farm in Scotland. With an installed capacity of 1,075 megawatts (MW), the wind farm will be Scotland’s single largest source of renewable energy and is […]

A quest for reliability and flexibility is driving significant interest in hybrid and co-located resources, but their widespread integration could hinge on how they are defined and valued in wholesale

At the virtual 2nd Global Ministerial Conference on System Integration of Renewables on Oct. 27, several high-ranking policymakers pointed to a number of localized challenges affecting their countries’

South Korea, Japan, and China, countries that rely heavily on coal power generation to fuel their economies, separately announced ambitious goals to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions within the

Norwegian Group Buying Vietnam Wind Farm. Norway’s SN Power AS in November agreed to purchase 100% of the shares in the 39.4-MW Dam Nai Wind Power project in Vietnam from Mekong Wind Pte. Ltd., a group owned

Even before the Stuxnet malware program made international headlines in 2010, cybersecurity was an important issue for utility companies. In the aftermath of one of the largest attacks on supervisory control

The equipment and facilities supporting today’s critical infrastructure are vital to modern society. This article provides testing and maintenance tips to ensure systems are kept in top condition. Power

Cutting-edge control automation will allow Europe’s biggest utility to extend the lifecycle of its assets at La Casella combined cycle power plant. Italian energy major Enel, through power engineering company Ansaldo Energia, is modernizing its gas turbine control systems at La Casella combined cycle power plant – located in Castel San Giovanni, Piacenza, Italy – […]

BWX Technologies (BWXT) on Nov. 23 said it has demonstrated the ability to additively manufacture nickel-based super alloys and refractory-metal-based alloys for use in nuclear components. The company also said it has “accomplished component-level qualification, leading to a more efficient certification of nuclear materials configured in complex geometries.”  The 3D printing breakthroughs achieved through a […]

Although there is only one nuclear power plant construction project in progress today in the U.S., that doesn’t mean the nuclear industry has gone dormant. A lot of research and development are ongoing, and the federal government is putting millions of dollars behind some of the efforts. The Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program “The Department of […]

“Digital Transformation” is a broad term that can mean vastly different things to different people. Within a given company, it’s easy to gain consensus that such a thing is necessary to stay competitive, but it’s tremendously difficult to define what it looks like in practical terms—much less where to start. Of course, it wouldn’t be […]

Geothermal is an often-overlooked and even disregarded renewable energy resource. While new wind and solar energy projects garner headlines nearly every day, geothermal is rarely sighted in news feeds. That could change in the future. In a report issued last year, the U.S. Department of Energy said geothermal electricity generation could increase more than 26-fold […]