In This Issue
-
WindTop Plants: San Cristobal Wind Project, Galapagos Islands, Ecuador
The Galapagos Islands, home of the unusual flora and fauna that inspired naturalist Charles Darwin’s groundbreaking work on evolution, are striving to promote clean energy that protects the area’s unique biodiversity. Part of that effort is the 2.4-MW San Cristobal Wind Project, which displaces diesel-powered electricity generation. This new energy source will cut greenhouse gas emissions and reduce the risk of devastating diesel-fuel tanker spills in a highly protected environment.
-
NuclearAREVA inches closer to U.S. EPR construction
UniStar Nuclear Energy announced on Oct. 8 that it had awarded an AREVA-Bechtel Power Corp. consortium a multi-year contract to complete detailed design engineering for a proposed AREVA U.S. Evolutionary Power Reactor (U.S. EPR) adjacent to Constellation Energy’s Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power plant in Lusby, Md. The scope of work includes full plant specifications and […]
-
GeothermalTop Plants: Thermo Plant, Beaver County, Utah
Geothermal energy projects are gaining steam in many parts of the western U.S., in large part because geothermal power has the advantage of being a renewable energy source that provides baseload power with no emissions and no waste by-products. One example of the latest developments in geothermal power generation is the recently completed 10-MW geothermal plant in rural Utah, which uses innovative modular power generation units.
-
Business
POWER digest (December 2008)
News items of interest to power industry professionals. Economic slowdown delays Canadian IGCC plant, kills W.Va. coal-to-liquids plant. Canadian firm Alter NRG announced in late October that it would shift its corporate focus from internally led project development to technology sales, in response to the global economic slowdown and turbulent capital markets. Among the projects […]
-
WindPrevailing winds: Trends in U.S. wind energy
Wind power is becoming a mainstream energy source that U.S. utilities are tapping into nationwide as a means of adding clean, domestically sourced energy to balance their generating portfolios. To identify where wind will take us,POWER’s senior editor talked to experts from diverse industry stakeholders about current and future developments.
-
O&M
Advanced batteries supply ancillary services
For the power engineer, delivering an instantaneous and consistent power supply can be an elusive goal. Yet without it, grid frequency regulation is impossible. Today, frequency regulation is an ancillary service bought by the hour, the day prior to utilization, and dispensed on an as-needed basis by dispatch communiqués and provided by the ancillary service […]
-
WindThe return of the Clipper Liberty wind turbine
The Steel Winds project in Lackawanna, New York, was selected as a POWER 2007 Top Plant because of its unusual location (a former steel mill and Superfund site) and because it was the first commercial deployment of the Clipper Windpower 2.5-MW turbine. That report was written just as the project entered commercial service but before a major gearbox problem was identified. For many new designs, it isn’t a question of if problems will occur but of how the manufacturer responds when problems inevitably do occur. For its handling of Liberty’s problem, Clipper Windpower gets an "A."
-
WindMap of wind power plants in North America
Courtesy: Platts Data source: Platts Energy Advantage and POWERmap. All rights reserved.
-
Business
Transforming transmission is key to power industry’s future
Call it the "trillion dollar conundrum." Really big money is needed to equip the U.S. transmission system to handle a variety of new requirements and increased load, but it isn’t clear how to raise it, spend it, or recover it. Expect new renewables projects to die on the vine until the gridlock loosens.
-
NewsPolysulfone flowmeters
A new line of injection-molded flowmeters from Dakota Instruments, Polysulfone Meters, meet the performance demands of a wide variety of industry-specific applications, including air-sampling equipment, water treatment and distribution systems, photo processing equipment, aquaculture, and desalinization equipment. The easy-to-install flowmeters are manufactured of polysulfone, a heat-resistant thermoplastic material for good chemical resistance. Flow indications provide […]