Global Monitor

News items of interest to power industry professionals. RWE and E.ON to partner on new UK nuclear capacity. German giants RWE AG and E.ON AG on Jan. 14 said they would partner to develop new nuclear power stations in the UK. The 50:50 joint venture will have a long-term focus on seeking secure sites being […]

Barely a month after the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) licensed the nation’s first commercial hydrokinetic power station, Houston-based Hydro Green Energy in January completed installation of the first of two turbines at an existing run-of-river hydropower plant on the Mississippi River for the Minnesota city of Hastings. When the second turbine is installed later this spring, the two hydrokinetic turbines will constitute a floating array that will sit on top of a barge at the Army Corps of Engineers’ Lock & Dam No. 2.

Like the airline industry, power generators all over the world have been seeking alternative fuels with which to produce electricity, and the blends are bound to get stranger. One company is looking to make liquid fuels from chicken fat, beef tallow, and pork lard, for example. Here’s a list of innovative fuels that generators could use in the near future.

Solar panel prices have taken a 10% tumble since October last year, and they are expected to drop another 15% to 20% this year, owning to an oversupply from the mass of new factories and draining demand in Germany and Spain, where solar incentives were recently cut. In the U.S., the low prices — pushed even lower by the renewed solar tax credits that took effect on Jan. 1 and other incentives — have heightened demand, both on the distributed generation level and at utility scale.

American Superconductor Corp. (AMSC) and Northrop Grumman Corp. in January said they successfully completed a full-power test of the world’s first 36.5-MW high-temperature superconductor (HTS) ship propulsion motor.

If measures aren’t taken immediately to replenish the rapidly shrinking Dead Sea, the very salty body of water in the Middle East will shrivel up within 50 years — and that could pose an environmental calamity, experts have warned.

Seventy-five countries from around the world joined a new political agency dedicated to the acceleration of green energy this January, but several notable nations — including the U.S., Canada, Australia, UK, Japan, and China — were not among them.

Despite hostilities that linger as a result of the 1986 nuclear nightmare at Chernobyl, Ukraine, and pressure from the European Union to shut down older-generation plants, Eastern European countries from the Baltic to Bulgaria are renovating existing nuclear plants or building new ones. If these projects become reality, the region will be able to secure its power supplies as well as cover the ongoing shortages in countries such as Greece, Macedonia, and Albania.

Declining oil prices, supply issues, and dwindling financing may have battered solar energy in recent months, but the industry seems to have sparred well in the research arena. An assortment of institutions separately announced breakthroughs in their quests to boost the efficiency of solar cells. The technological advancements ranged in approach, from the development of an antireflective coating to the formulation of more efficient solar cell materials, but all point to promising possibilities for the industry.

An energy-generating revolving door installed at Driebergen-Zeist railway station in the Netherlands is the latest experiment in eco-building. Dutch company Royal Boon Edam Group Holdings designed the manual door to match the newly refurbished station’s sustainable technology theme, while keeping in mind that the station — converted into a multifunctional area featuring restaurants and a tourist information and visitor center — holds 8,500 commuters at capacity.