In This Issue
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Our Integrity Is Not for Sale
I was putting the finishing touches on this month’s editorial when I received an email from a reader who owns a company that serves the power industry. He was very complimentary of an article I recently wrote. "Goes without saying," I was thinking to myself. However, actually saying it goes a long way in my book, and I enjoy hearing from readers — at least most of the time.
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HydroEthiopia Completes Construction of Africa’s Tallest Dam
Ethiopia, the landlocked nation in East Africa from which key tributaries to the Nile River originate, completed construction of the continent’s highest dam, the 188-meter Tekezé Arch Dam (Figure 3) in February.
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GasQatar Starts Construction on Middle East’s Largest Power and Water Plant
The gas-rich Persian Gulf state of Qatar in May commenced construction of the region’s largest power and water plant, a massive project comprising eight gas turbine generators, eight heat-recovery steam generators, four steam turbine generators, and 10 desalination units.
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O&MExtreme Oil Changes
Performing regular oil changes on remote generators is far from simple or cost-effective. Here’s how one firm harnessed technology to extend oil change intervals from one week to two months.
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Wind"Smart Turbine Blades" to Improve Wind Power
Engineers at Purdue University and Sandia National Laboratories have developed a technique that uses sensors and computational software to constantly monitor forces exerted on wind turbine blades. Their achievement could one day improve the efficiency of wind turbines by providing the blades’ "smart" structure with necessary data to adjust to rapidly changing wind conditions.
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Legal & Regulatory
Too Many Fingers in the Smart Grid Pie?
There has been much excitement about the advent of the "smart grid" recently, especially because of the strong push by the Obama administration. Despite the simple-sounding term, the smart grid is not a simple concept.
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BusinessEnergy Storage Efforts Making Progress
The intensifying spotlight on renewable energy seems to be casting a brighter light on the energy storage problem, with lawmakers, researchers, and investors scrambling to seek out the most feasible solution to bridge the intermittent nature of renewable power sources.
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Instrumentation & ControlsDigital Networks Prove Reliable, Reduce Costs
The debate over the benefits of using digital bus networks as the communications backbone of new power plants is all but settled. The technology is maturing, and the reliability of digital hardware is superior to that of hardwired systems. Newmont Gold Mining’s 200-MW TS Power Plant is perhaps the power industry’s best example of how a plantwide digital controls architecture can provide exceptional reliability and be significantly less costly to install.
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SolarPG&E Makes a Deal for Space-Based Power
Just as reports emerged earlier this year that NASA had abandoned, for lack of financial resources, its research into space-based solar power that would be harnessed via orbiting solar arrays beaming microwaves to earthly receivers, California’s Pacific Gas & Electric Co. (PG&E) wrote the California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) requesting its approval of a power purchase agreement from a similar technology.