Latest

A renewable energy project in eastern Oregon is being touted as the first in the U.S. to combine wind and solar power with battery storage. Portland General Electric (PGE) plans to build the Wheatridge Renewable Energy Facility just north of Lexington, Oregon, the company announced last week. The utility is developing the 380-MW project with […]

Wärtsilä Corporation, Press release, 18 February 2019 at 2 pm EET The technology group Wärtsilä has successfully handed over projects for two Wärtsilä engine power plants installed in the Dominican Republic. The additional capacity is needed to meet the increasing electricity demand from the country’s growing tourist industry. Both hand-overs took place in December 2018. […]

The Gustav Knepper power plant in Dortmund-Mengede, Germany, was leveled by two controlled explosions on February 17. The facility had been closed for five years. The plant’s boiler house was brought down first. A 210-meter chimney and 128-meter cooling tower were leveled in a second blast, about 45 minutes after the first. The German YouTube […]

Harriet Monroe, the founder and longtime editor of Poetry magazine, was the author of a large body of poems that captured the essence of urban industrial modernity. Her 1914 book, You and I ( Macmillan Company, New York), contains two poems about power generation. The first, “The Turbine,” is an engineer’s ode to his turbine. […]

Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems (MHPS) appears to have snagged the lead in an intensifying competition in a mostly flat market for heavy-duty gas turbines of above 100 MW, but GE retained its lead both for overall installed gas turbine capacity and units in 2018, a much-watched industry ranking suggests. Data from McCoy Power Reports’ latest […]

Pennsylvania, the nation’s second-largest nuclear power-producing state, is now definitively a battleground for nuclear power subsidies.  Last week, in two memos that were circulated in the state House and Senate, seven lawmakers signaled they would soon introduce legislation that would update a 2004 state law—the Alternative Energy Portfolio Standards (AEPS)—to include nuclear power. The law […]

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is holding a board meeting today, during which the fate of the corporate agency’s Bull Run and Paradise Unit 3 coal power plants could be decided. Permanent closure of the facilities is strongly being considered. The stakes are high, according to Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin (R). In a Jan. 4 […]

Some combined cycle plants have two feedwater-control valves: a small startup valve with the extra cavitation protection needed during startup and low-load operations, and a larger main valve with the high flow capacity needed during full-load ops. This design is intended to yield a longer service life of these valves. However, as the plant ages, […]

California Governor Gavin Newsom on February 12 said the state has formed a “strike team” as it works to develop plans to help not only utility ratepayers but also utility employees. The move comes in the wake of the bankruptcy filing by Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) as the state’s largest utility deals with its […]

Some high-tech security features meant to protect U.S. power plants from physical attack may not be as effective as good old-fashioned fences and concrete, according to a Georgia Institute of Technology graduate who modeled security measures in a computer simulation while earning her PhD in Public Policy. Jenna McGrath, who graduated in December 2018, published […]