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LUDECA launched the ROTALIGN Ultra Live Trend, a short-term continuous-monitoring application that helps to accurately determine the relative positional changes between coupled machines during run-up or shutdown. It utilizes the unique ROTALIGN five-axis sensor to monitor continuously, in real time and simultaneously, both the vertical and horizontal parallel and angular displacement of rotating machinery, from cold […]

Computers at Iran’s Bushehr nuclear reactor and around the country have reportedly been infected by the Stuxnet worm, a sophisticated malware that attacks supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems at power plants, factories, and military installations.

Electric grid cybersecurity in the U.S. was revved up in the past week as the Energy Department announced investments of more than $30 million in 10 solution-seeking projects. At the same time, the DOE selected an Electric Power Research Institute- (EPRI-) led collaborative to assess and develop technologies and standards to protect the nation against cyber attacks.

Regulators at the California Air Resources Board (CARB) unanimously voted to increase that state’s renewable electricity standard (RES) to 33% by 2020 last week. The regulation applies to all entities that deliver power, including publicly owned utilities and investor-owned utilities.

The California Energy Commission (CEC) last week approved BrightSource Energy’s 370-MW Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System proposed for construction in the Mojave Desert. The project is the fourth solar thermal power plant approved in the past month despite presenting “significant environmental challenges,” the commission said.

American Electric Power and Allegheny Energy last week said they filed a new application with the Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC) to build the Virginia segment of the Potomac-Appalachian Transmission Highline (PATH).

A wave energy device was connected to the grid for the first time in the U.S. this week. Ocean Power Technologies (OPT) hooked up its PowerBuoy system, a device that had been deployed in December 2009 in waters 100 feet deep and nearly three-quarters of a mile off the coast of Oahu, Hawaii.

The Energy Department on Tuesday said it had signed a final cooperative agreement with the FutureGen Industrial Alliance and Ameren Energy Resources, formally committing $1 billion in Recovery Act funding to build the revamped FutureGen project.

Whether you are a customer (and we all are), a utility executive, a power plant manager, or a grid operator, the smart grid has the potential to provide benefits beyond electricity. That was one theme of the presentations on Tuesday, the first day of the GridWise Global Forum (GGF) in Washington, D.C.

South Africa’s government on Thursday announced it would no longer invest in the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) project, despite providing nearly 80% of the R9.2 billion ($1.3 billion) that has been poured into development of the Generation-IV helium-cooled high temperature reactor design. The decision was reached with the “fiscal constraints in these hard economic times” in mind, the government said.