In This Issue
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InternationalA 2016 Roundup of Power Sector Wheeling, Dealing, and Repositioning
The past year saw an astonishing number of mergers, acquisitions, and business reconfigurations of electricity and energy companies, without any obvious organizing theory. Is it possible to make sense of the activity, or is it just business Brownian motion—aka, random behavior? Gas companies spun off power generating assets. Power companies sold offshore businesses. Independent generators […]
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RenewablesNewtonian Shift Game Helps Power Industry Comprehend Transition
How do you get generating company executives and those who interact with the power industry to think outside the box when planning for the future? The answer may involve a board game. Humans are pre-programmed to prefer routine, tradition, and regularity, without questioning whether longevity equals good. Fear of the unknown, and the power of […]
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O&MGas Chromatographs Offer New Technology for Power Plant Burner Control
Background burner control is critical for power and industrial plants because it affects emissions, energy costs, and process efficiencies. For natural gas burners, variations in gas composition can have a
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NuclearChina Starts Building SMR-Based Floating Nuclear Plant
China has officially begun construction of its first offshore nuclear power plant, a demonstration project that will employ the domestically developed ACPR50S small modular reactor (SMR). China General Nuclear Power Corp. (CGN) on November 4 told reporters at a press conference that the project (Figure 6) is a “top priority” that will further the country’s […]
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T&DReadying for New HVDC Line, U.S. Lags Behind Rest of World
The U.S. may be getting its first overhead 600-kV high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) line in more than 20 years. Developers are advancing the Plains and Eastern Clean Line, a 720-mile (1,150-kilometer [km]) project that could deliver 4 GW of renewable power from the Oklahoma Panhandle region to states in the Southeast. The project is spearheaded by […]
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CoalIEA: Coal Boom Is Over
If broad policy commitments announced by various countries are implemented, coal will not only lose its rank as the dominant fuel for power generation to renewables by 2040, but the world’s coal fleet will be significantly transformed by technology advances, the International Energy Agency’s (IEA’s) newly released World Energy Outlook (WEO-2016) forecasts. Under a baseline […]
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Legal & RegulatoryMexico Makes Rapid Progress on Energy Reform
Barely a year after Mexico launched a wholesale market with retail competition as part of a wide-scale reform of its power sector, the country has managed to implement a transparent system that is attracting investment. Mexico has also expanded its grid and deployed notable amounts of renewables that are producing power at unprecedented low prices, […]
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CoalMarket Conditions Force Coal Unit Closures in Australia, Germany
Difficult market conditions have accelerated the much-hyped closures of a string of coal-fired power units in the U.S., but the phenomenon is extending overseas, gripping plants in Australia and Germany. In the wake of the Paris agreement in December 2015, a number of governments have moved to phase out coal-fired generation. This October, France, which […]
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Renewables
POWER Digest
Japanese Firms Poised to Build Two 540-MW IGCC Plants Based on Nakoso Technology. A consortium of Japanese firms on December 1 said they had received full-turnkey orders for two integrated gasification
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Legal & Regulatory
New England’s Controversial Pipeline Proposal Suffers Severe Setbacks
Just a few months ago, New England’s biggest and most controversial pipeline proposal, Algonquin Gas Transmission’s Access Northeast project (see “Securing Pipeline Infrastructure for Gas-Fired Generation in New England” in the July 2016 issue), was poised for regulatory scrutiny. Access Northeast distinguished itself by its partnership with electric distribution companies (EDCs), namely National Grid and […]
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CommentaryThe Power Industry’s Moving Pieces in 2017
As our January 2017 cover image of a dynamic Rubik’s Cube suggests, the power industry, especially in the U.S., is dealing with something akin to solving a 3-D puzzle whose pieces are being added and subtracted as the game is being played. Although shares of traditional, regulated electric utilities remain some of the most predictable […]
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Legal & RegulatoryU.S. Electric Markets in Transition
The U.S. market for electricity is trifurcated. More than half the country is served by competitive generators bidding against each other in wholesale markets. Almost half is served by conventional state-regulated, vertically integrated utilities controlling generation and transmission. The rest, a much smaller portion, consists of government-owned and customer-owned utilities, some of which are generators […]
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CommentaryDesigning an Electric Power System from Scratch
The Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA) launched its 51st State Initiative in 2014 with a simple question: What if there were no predefined electricity market? No rules. No market designs. No policies. No subsidies for any type of energy resource. Just a grid to deliver electric power from a variety of sources. And customers. Plenty […]
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Legal & RegulatoryEnergy Policy Implications of Elections in France and Germany
Just as the election of Donald J. Trump could result in redirected energy policy in the U.S., 2017 elections in France and Germany could reshape plans for electricity infrastructure on the European continent. Also on both continents, some factors and trends will be out of elected officials’ control. “Difficult to see. Always in motion is […]
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Legal & RegulatoryPower Generators Agree: The Future Grid Will Be Cleaner
A digital roundtable with four senior members of diverse generating companies reveals that regulations aren’t the top concern at the moment. Instead, decisions are being driven both by customer desires and
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GasAcquisitions Reset the Global Gas Turbine Market
A series of acquisitions among major suppliers in the gas turbine market over the past couple of years has changed much of the global landscape for gas-fired power. Several long-standing firms have been swallowed up, while others have gained new prominence thanks to conditions laid on the big deals by regulators. What this means for […]