Top Plant

Baranof Island is home to Sitka, Alaska. Located on the outer coast of Alaska’s Inside Passage, it is accessible only by air and sea (although once on the island, standard forms of transportation are

With its vast resources of oil, gas, coal, and tar sands—some of the largest in the world—the province of Alberta has long been known as Canada’s fuel tank. Coal- and gas-fired power has supplied the

Just how fast are things moving in solar? When we received the nomination for the massive Desert Sunlight Solar Farm in late April, the 550-MW facility was the largest solar power plant in the world, sharing

The Great Rift Valley is a massive continental fault system that runs 6,000 kilometers (km) from Mozambique to Jordan. In Kenya, the East African nation that is neatly halved by the equator, the Rift Valley is

From space, the 12.7-kilometer (km) Sihwa Lake tidal barrage that houses a 400-meter (m)-long tidal power plant looks like a delicate strand stretched across one of many bays and inlets characterizing the

Begun with grand ambitions in the early 1980s, the second unit at Argentina’s Atucha site ran smack into the country’s economic crises in the following decade. But a determined crew brought the project to completion after a 13-year hiatus through a focus on rebuilding the nation’s nuclear labor force. As with many other nations in […]

The nearly 4-GW, three-unit Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station remains the largest generator of electricity in the U.S. for the 23rd consecutive year, producing more than 30 million MWh in 2014, for the 10th time (the only plant in the U.S. to do so), all while using only treated wastewater for cooling. Palo Verde Nuclear […]

Alliant Energy and its co-owners are investing $900 million to modernize the Columbia Energy Center with a new suite of air quality control equipment and plant improvements that will increase its output and efficiency while reducing emissions. The plant makeover ensures its continued operation for decades to come. In 2009, Wisconsin Power and Light Co., […]

Owner/operator: TNB Janamanjung Sdn. Bhd. Ultrasupercritical technology is the current gold standard for coal-fired plants, but Malaysian national utility Tenaga Nasional Berhad had some unique requirements for its newest, most efficient plant. With a client lacking an indigenous source of coal and needing wide fuel flexibility, Alstom delivered a state-of-the-art plant that can handle an […]

Owner/operator: Interstate Power & Light Co. (a subsidiary of Alliant Energy) and MidAmerican Energy Co. (a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Energy) / Alliant Energy Alliant Energy recently completed a major renovation of the Ottumwa Generating Station to improve air quality, plant reliability, and efficiency. By doing so it also reduced its carbon footprint by ~5.6%.  […]

Owner/operator: NTPC Ltd. One of NTPC’s first coal-fired facilities, the 2.6-GW Ramagundam plant, is aging well, delivering noteworthy performance metrics that distinguish it from other plants in the state-owned generator’s big coal fleet. For nearly four decades, the 2.6-GW Ramagundam Super Thermal Power Station’s vermillion-banded stacks have towered over the green teak forests of what […]

Owner/operator: Shenergy Company Ltd. In a nation seeing breakneck growth in its power sector and a drive toward cleaner, more efficient generation, coal remains the backbone. That means hard work is ahead for China in power sector innovation, and a plant in Shanghai is leading the way. There is no country on earth that has […]

Owner/operator: Great River Energy Recent news has focused on the decline of the coal-fired power industry, but this highly efficient combined heat and power plant offers one template for keeping coal generation viable. Although electricity markets remain challenging, partnering with steam customers can help stabilize revenue. Combined heat and power (CHP), also known as cogeneration, […]

The Turkish electricity market was opened to competition in 2001 when the Turkish Grand National Assembly passed the Electricity Market Law, which unbundled its generation, transmission, and wholesale power

In the early 2010s, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) was staring down the barrel of dangerously low reserve margins, a combination of growing demand and an energy-only wholesale market that

As with many areas in North America and Europe, electricity generation in the Canadian province of Alberta is in transition toward cleaner, more efficient, more water-wise power. According to statistics from

Emerging from decades of isolation, fragility, and conflict, Myanmar has, since 2011, ushered in a reformist government and embarked upon unprecedented political and economic reforms. Among those reforms has

Sharing borders with Saudi Arabia, Israel, Syria, and Iraq, Jordan sits in a very precarious part of the world. To make matters worse, the country’s economy is among the smallest in the Middle East. Chronic

The western Arizona desert has become a popular location for constructing large solar projects. The sunshine is plentiful and there are large tracts of non-prime farmland available that make building

Like many small countries, Albania is dependent on a specific generation type for the majority of its electricity. In the case of this mountainous nation of 3 million people, it’s hydropower. Roughly 98% of

The Solana Generating Station ( solana in Spanish means “sunny spot”) is built on a 1,920-acre site near Gila Bend, about an hour’s drive west of Phoenix. According to Abengoa, which owns the facility

Think your nuclear plant faced delays and obstacles? India’s Kudankulam project, Unit 1 of which begins commercial operation this month, spent 26 years in development and construction and faced down obstacles that included a seven-month blockade by protesters to become the nation’s largest nuclear plant.  There are power plant projects that seem to drag on […]

While other countries move to reduce or eliminate nuclear generation, China has been rapidly expanding it. With 27 reactors under construction, its installed nuclear capacity is expected to more than double by 2020. The Hongyanhe facility is one example of nuclear’s growth in China and represents multiple firsts. China is powering up. The country’s generation […]

Eskom, South Africa’s largest utility, was established in 1923 as the Electricity Supply Commission and was converted into a public company, wholly owned by the government, in July 2002. Eskom produces about

Bad weather, unforeseen setbacks, and even natural disasters are far from unheard of during power plant construction. But there may be no plant that experienced the sort of construction hardships that Tokyo

In the October 2013 issue of POWER, Tata Power’s 4-GW Mundra ultra-mega power plant was recognized with a Top Plant award in the coal category. This year POWER recognizes another behemoth in the region—and

This is a tough time to be running a business as power-intensive as aluminum smelting in India. The economic boom that has lifted many of the nation’s 1.2 billion citizens out of persistent poverty has

Germany’s energy transition— Energiewende —has made a lot of headlines. Whether you agree with the country’s energy policy or not, there is no denying that it has spurred the growth of renewables. Even