In This Issue
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Hydro
How Colorado’s Cabin Creek Hydro Plant Evolved from Coal Balancer to Renewable Grid Stabilizer
Xcel Energy’s comprehensive modernization of the Cabin Creek pumped-storage facility—featuring an innovative 11-blade turbine runner—earned the station a POWER Top Plant award. The retrofit project not
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Top Plant
Reclaimed Coal Mine Shines Spotlight on Innovative Solar System
A long-dormant coal mine waste site in Pennsylvania has new life, providing solar power to the local community thanks to a groundbreaking tracking system enabling installation across challenging terrain.
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Top Plant
Geothermal Breakthrough in South Texas Signals New Era for ERCOT
In just 12 months, Sage Geosystems and San Miguel Electric Cooperative built the world’s first pressure geothermal system. It is now poised to deliver long-duration, dispatchable storage for the Electric
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Hybrid Power
Desert Power: A Deep Dive into the Massive Solar + Storage Project Powering Las Vegas’ Lights
In a sun-drenched Nevada desert, the Gemini project became America’s largest dispatchable single-phase solar + storage system, powering up to 10% of Nevada’s peak demand. This POWER Top Plant award winner
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Renewables
Solar and Wind’s Hidden Price Tag: Why Cost Isn’t the Whole Story
Solar and wind power have become increasingly cost-competitive over the past decade, prompting claims that they are now the cheapest sources of new electricity. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)
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Top Plant
Solar by the Numbers: Midong Is China’s Latest Mega-Marvel
A solar power project in the Gobi Desert has moved the needle on the size and scope of global photovoltaic installations, aided by innovation in equipment and construction. The numbers tell much of the story
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Nuclear
Policy Shift, Private Sector Drive Put Nuclear Recycling Back on the Table
Over nearly five decades, nuclear waste has been treated as an intractable problem, locked in dry casks, relegated to repositories that are slow to materialize, and generally viewed as a costly liability
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Carbon Capture
Carbon Capture Projects Come Online in Iceland, Saudi Arabia
Officials in Iceland recently celebrated the opening of Steingerour, a state-of-the-art carbon capture installation that is transforming Iceland’s ON Power plant into one of the world’s first near-zero emission geothermal power stations. The facility is expected to deliver about 10% of Iceland’s 2030 Climate Action Plan targets for the energy and industrial sectors.
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Finance
POWER Digest [September 2025]
Hitachi Energy, E.ON Ink $700M Deal to Strengthen German Grid. Hitachi Energy, the world’s largest transformer manufacturer, has signed a deal worth up to $700 million with German utility E.ON to supply
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Gas
Fuel Gas Compression for Gas-Fired Power Generation: Comparing API 619, API 618, and API 617 Technologies
Selecting the best fuel gas compressor technology is critical for plant performance and economics. This comprehensive comparison examines three compressor types to help power plant designers choose the optimal
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Engineering
Advancements in Steam Turbine Efficiency for Modern Power Generation: Reducing Costs and Emissions
Steam turbine technology is not stagnant. Advanced designs are incorporating innovations in blade design, advanced materials, precision manufacturing, and high-energy steam cycles, delivering significant
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Water
How Advanced Monitoring and Early Warning Tools Are Revolutionizing Power Plant Cooling Water Intake Management
Thermal power plants, nuclear and fossil-fueled, rely on cooling water intake structures (CWIS) to withdraw water for rejecting waste heat. The CWIS serves as a critical interface between engineered systems and the natural environment, making it vulnerable to various external factors such as biological growth, water chemistry changes, hydraulic forces, drifting debris, and meteorologic events. […]
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Electrification
Modernization Is the Onramp to Emerging Technologies
As complexity rises across the power industry, modern control systems are becoming the foundation for next-generation solutions. By embracing automation, simulation, and artificial intelligence (AI)-ready
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O&M
Understanding Reverse Osmosis Water Treatment Systems
Reverse osmosis (RO) is a vital water purification technology used in various applications such as boiler feedwater treatment, cooling water systems, and wastewater recycling. The feedwater for RO can
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Legal & Regulatory
Navigating the Property Tax Maze: Why Utilities and Energy Companies Need Smarter Solutions
In today’s business climate, where uncertainty is the only constant, all energy companies and utilities are looking for opportunities to preserve profit and enhance efficiency. For organizations managing
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Legal & Regulatory
Preparing for the Freeze: A Practical Guide to NERC EOP-012 Cold Weather Compliance
The stakes have never been higher for power generation facilities when it comes to extreme cold weather. Severe winter events exposed critical vulnerabilities across the U.S. power grid, leading to widespread outages and cascading failures. These events underscored a harsh reality: cold weather preparation is no longer an option; it’s a necessity. To meet this […]
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Data Centers
Managing AI’s Heat: Advanced Liquid Cooling Systems and the Instrumentation That Supports Them
Efficient liquid cooling supported by reliable instrumentation is essential for data centers to handle increased capacity demands in the age of artificial intelligence (AI) and other heavy compute applications. The landscape of data processing has undergone a seismic shift recently, with today’s artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC) applications requiring computational power at a […]
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Trends
Beyond Basic Sealing: Advanced Carbon Seal Rings Are Driving Industrial Decarbonization
Carbon seal rings are silently revolutionizing industries—from oil rigs to rocket engines. Carbon seal rings can have significant effects. Take a recent upgrade by ExxonMobil. By switching to advanced carbon seals in refineries, the company cut fugitive emissions by almost 30% and saved millions of dollars in downtime. Or SpaceX, which relies on ultra-durable carbon-graphite […]
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Trends
Transforming the Grid: Forging a Path to Resilience
The U.S. power grid has delivered electricity reliably for decades. However, today the grid faces challenges that are driving transformation, reshaping its operational scope and the technologies on which it relies.
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Electrification
Powering Progress: Redefining Energy Strategy for Sustainable Manufacturing
As commercial and industrial facilities face growing pressure to reduce emissions, lower costs, and build resilience into their operations, the spotlight has shifted to power. At Hutchinson Aerospace and