Top Plant
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Gas
Two SCE Gas-Battery Hybrid Projects Revolutionize Peaker Performance
For deploying a novel, groundbreaking gas-battery hybrid technology along with environmentally significant upgrades within a tight installment window, and despite logistical hurdles, Southern California
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Gas
The Highly Efficient Workhorse of Brunswick County
Dominion Energy’s massive new natural gas-fired combined cycle power plant in Freeman, Virginia, has been servicing customers since April 2016. In its first year online, the plant carried roughly 10% of
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Gas
World’s Most-Efficient Combined Cycle Plant: EDF Bouchain
When you bring two power giants together to develop a new breed of combined cycle gas turbine plant, you expect the results to be pretty good. When EDF and GE installed the first commercial 9HA gas turbine in
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O&M
Capturing Carbon and Seizing Innovation: Petra Nova Is POWER’s Plant of the Year
Winning POWER’s highest honor, the U.S.’s first and world’s largest commercial post-combustion carbon capture system at a power plant is distinctively both a globally significant environmental
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O&M
Flexibility, Efficiency, and Low Emissions Make Repowered Facility a Success
The Glenarm Power Plant has been keeping the lights on around Pasadena, California, for more than 110 years. The historic site has expanded over time and has included a total of 17 different power generation
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O&M
Closed Circuit Reverse Osmosis System Squeezes Money Savings Out of Water Management
In water-strapped California, managing power plant water usage is more important than ever. Southern California Edison implemented novel closed circuit reverse osmosis systems at five of its gas-fired
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O&M
Ameren’s TAC Microgrid Seamlessly Integrates Distributed Energy Resources
The microgrid installation at the Ameren Illinois Technology Applications Center (TAC) near the University of Illinois campus in Champaign—designed, engineered, and constructed by S&C Electric Co. of
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O&M
Collaboration and Innovation Produce a Powerful Microgrid Solution
The challenge was to take a facility that was far off the grid, and move it forward as an energy self-sufficient complex while also turning an idea into a commercially viable product. That was the impetus
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Coal
Improved Maintenance Strategy and Excellent Planning Turns Coal Plant into a Top Performer
Southern Co.’s Plant Scherer was chosen as the 2017 Powder River Basin Coal Users’ Group Plant of the Year based on a rigorous selection criteria, including safety, fire protection, and risk reduction
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Renewables
After Blackout, South Australia Wrests Control of Its Power Security
Freshly reeling from a statewide blackout, South Australia’s government in March released an energy plan that seeks to cut its reliance on an electricity interconnector with eastern Australia that feeds the
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Solar
TOP PLANT: Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project, Tonopah, Nevada
Owner/operator: SolarReserve Three-and-a-half hours north of Las Vegas, in a rocky, desolate stretch of Nevada desert, an innovative solar-storage plant has nearly completed a year of commercial operations. It also may have delivered proof of round-the-clock dispatchable solar energy. The Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project, a concentrating solar power (CSP) plant built by Santa Monica, […]
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Renewables
TOP PLANT: Amazon Wind Farm Fowler Ridge, Benton County, Indiana
Owner/operator: Pattern Energy Just as Seattle’s Amazon.com jumpstarted the online shopping trend, it’s now part of another trend that has major corporations owning or contracting for sizable grid-connected renewable power facilities. A new wind farm in rural Indiana is part of that story. Cloud computing is big business, and it’s growing as fast as cumulous […]
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Renewables
TOP PLANT: Gibe III Hydroelectric Project, Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples’ Region, Ethiopia
Owner/operator: Ethiopian Electric Power Corp. Building the 1,870-MW Gibe III hydroelectric project required unprecedented solutions that took into account the remoteness of the site, the narrow gorge where the dam is located, the height of the dam, and challenges in sourcing reliable materials. Split almost diagonally by the East African Rift System, Ethiopia is a […]
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Renewables
TOP PLANT: Palm Beach Renewable Energy Facility 2, West Palm Beach, Florida
Owner/operator: Solid Waste Authority of Palm Beach County/Babcock & Wilcox Co. Although waste-to-energy (WTE) technology is well proven, the relatively low cost of landfilling garbage in the U.S. has foiled new power plant construction for many years. However, a facility in Florida—the first greenfield WTE project the U.S. has seen in 20 years—shows it’s still […]
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Renewables
TOP PLANT: Tosunlar 1 Akca Plant, Saraykoy, Denizli, Turkey
Owner/operator: Akca Enerji Geothermal energy has long been handicapped by its need for high-temperature resources to generate economic power, but innovations in binary Organic Rankine Cycle systems are making it possible to exploit low-temperature sites. An innovative plant in Turkey using Italian technology has taken things a step further with a unique two-pressure, multistage, single-disk […]
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Renewables
TOP PLANT: Yeongheung Ocean Hydro Power Plants, Yeongheung Island, South Korea
Owner/operator: Korea South East Power Co., Ltd. Few people would view a large coal plant as a place to generate renewable energy. But a Korean utility took a chance on an innovative approach, harnessing the latent energy of the plant’s cooling effluent to drive a trio of hydroelectric plants, and in so doing, created a […]
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Nuclear
TOP PLANT: Beloyarsk Nuclear Power Plant Unit 4, Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia
Owner/operator: Rosenergoatom Fast-neutron reactors are pivotal to Russia’s ambitious nuclear power plans. The successful construction, grid-connection, and testing of the country’s first BN-800 reactor at its Beloyarsk nuclear plant is a major achievement in the right direction. Since the Soviet Union began its first experimental nuclear power projects in the 1940s, Russia has embraced nuclear’s […]
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Nuclear
TOP PLANT: Ningde Nuclear Power Plant, Fujian Province, China
China is on an epic build-out of its nuclear generating capacity, and developing indigenous expertise and technology is central to that goal. The first completed plant leveraging the nation’s CPR-1000 design
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O&M
TOP PLANT: Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station, Delta, Pennsylvania
Owner/operator: Exelon Generation and PSEG Nuclear/Exelon Generation When decision-makers choose to increase the maximum output of a nuclear power plant through an uprate, it sets in motion a process that can take many years and countless man-hours to complete. The success of Peach Bottom station’s extended power uprate project shows that all the long hours […]
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Coal
Slide Show Supplement to Mátra Power Plant, Visonta, Hungary
The Mátra Power Plant in Visonta, Hungary, uses a dense slurry system for handling fly ash and other coal combustion residuals. The DSS combines ash and water in a 1:1 ratio, creating a cement-like slurry. [gss ids=”93802,93804,93832,93808,93834,93836,93838,93840,93842,93844,93822,93846,93848,93850″]
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Coal
TOP PLANT: Mátra Power Plant, Visonta, Hungary
Owner/operator: Mátra Power Plant Co. Ltd. Hungary’s largest coal-fired power plant is a model of efficiency and environmental impact despite its 1960s-era vintage. Continual upgrades have kept the plant running smoothly, and a modern dense slurry ash-handling system keeps combustion residuals under control and allows for a zero liquid discharge posture. Unlike some of its […]
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Coal
TOP PLANT: National Capital Power Station Dadri, Gautam Budh Nagar, Uttar Pradesh, India
Owner/operator: NTPC Ltd. India’s state-owned generator NTPC operates a large fleet of power plants across the nation, and one of its top performers is found outside the capital of New Delhi. Staff at NTPC Dadri have taken a proactive, innovative approach to maintaining their plant, making it one of the most efficient in India despite […]
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Coal
TOP PLANT: Tanjung Bin Energy Power Plant, Johor, Malaysia
Owner/operator: Malakoff Corp. Bhd. Building a power plant on a site previously used for an aquaculture farm comes with more than a few challenges. For the Tanjung Bin Energy Power Plant, that meant some redesign and rework was required. Even so, the GE-led construction consortium made adjustments and delivered the state-of-the-art ultrasupercritical project on time […]
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Gas
TOP PLANT: Cane Run Generating Station Unit 7, Louisville, Kentucky
Owner/operator: Louisville Gas and Electric Co. and Kentucky Utilities Kentucky has always been coal country, but times are changing, and its generation fleet is changing with them. Facing the prospect of costly emissions control upgrades at the 60-year-old Cane Run Generating Station, Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities opted to retire the aging facility […]
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Gas
TOP PLANT: Chivasso Combined Cycle Power Plant, Turin, Italy
Owner/operator: A2A When a plant goes into mothballs—especially because of poor economics—it’s often a harbinger of impending retirement. Upgrades to improve performance may help, but in changing markets, returns can be highly uncertain. Italian energy firm A2A partnered with GE to return one plant to profitability with a combination of hardware improvements and cloud-based analytics. […]
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Gas
TOP PLANT: Attaqa Power Plant, Suez City, Egypt
To alleviate chronic power shortages, the first gas turbine unit at this fast-tracked 640-MW plant was synchronized to the grid within a record-breaking 159 days—two days ahead of schedule. The revolution in
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Gas
TOP PLANT: ETHYDCO Power Plant, Alexandria, Egypt
Owner/operator: APR Energy Within roughly 90 days, APR Energy set up a 60-MW turnkey power plant—complete with novel natural gas filtration and compression solutions—to support the operations of a massive Egyptian polyethylene plant until a bigger, permanent power plant can be built. It all began in April 2013, when Egyptian Ethylene and Derivatives Co. (ETHYDCO) […]
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Gas
TOP PLANT: Linden Generating Station, Linden, New Jersey
Owner/operator: PSEG New Jersey’s second-largest power plant has been a leader since it opened in 2006, when it was named a POWER Top Plant for its use of reclaimed water for cooling and for fitting an advanced four-unit facility into a constrained brownfield site. Now PSEG’s Linden Generating Station becomes a two-time Top Plant winner […]
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Gas
TOP PLANT: Valley Power Plant, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Owner/operator: We Energies Converting a boiler’s fuel source from coal to natural gas involves a lot of planning and reengineering. When the plant is the sole steam service supplier to a downtown metropolitan area, it also involves a rigid schedule. The Valley Power Plant overcame several challenges to successfully complete one such conversion. The Valley […]
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Coal
Longview Power Plant Rehabilitation Results in Most Efficient U.S. Coal Plant
We’ve all probably purchased a “lemon”—an item that didn’t work as advertised—but when that lemon is a $2.1 billion power plant, you can’t just return it. For Longview Power’s management team, taking a “belts-and-suspenders” approach to problem-solving allowed them to identify root causes, make changes, and convert their lemon into “lemonade.” Most people expect a […]