Global Monitor

The long-drawn-out political impasse on Australia’s review of its Renewable Energy Target (RET) has generators reeling from what they say are “constant policy changes and distortions from successive interference by governments.” Australia’s RET, which has been in operation since 2001, was increased in 2010 to require that about 20% of the nation’s then-projected demand in […]

A pilot plant in Andalucía, Spain, built by a consortium of multinational European partners, is converting toxic waste from olive oil production into electricity using an innovative three-part process

Candu Wins China’s Backing to Develop AFCR Projects. Candu Energy and the China National Nuclear Corp. on Nov. 10 signed a framework joint venture agreement to build Advanced Fuel CANDU Reactor (AFCR)

The trial operation of a steam loop for more than 17,000 hours at temperatures exceeding 760C (1,400F)—the highest ever tested at a pulverized coal plant—have wrapped up at Plant Barry Unit 4 in Alabama

Through 2014, 47 GW of new wind power capacity will be installed in China, Brazil, South Africa, Mexico, and other emerging markets, marking a sharp recovery for the global wind industry after four years of

Renewables’ share of the global power mix is slated to overtake coal to become the largest source of electricity by 2040, the International Energy Agency (IEA) projects in its 2014 edition of the World

Recent months have seen a violent shakeup of India’s coal supply sector and may result in the end of a 40-year-old government monopoly on mining and selling coal. The development could be a boon for

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s Direct Action Plan, the policy mechanism proposed to replace the coal-rich country’s now-defunct carbon trading program, cleared the Senate despite staunch

Solar power has taken many forms in recent years—from giant concentrated solar power installations and solar towers spread out across deserts worldwide, to rooftop photovoltaic (PV) installations in urban

EU Adopts Energy, Climate Targets for 2030. European Union (EU) leaders on Oct. 23 endorsed a binding target that will require all of the bloc’s 28 members to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by at

France, which counts on nuclear energy for roughly 75% of its power needs and is a leading nuclear technology exporter, has embarked on an energy transition to substantially diminish its reliance on nuclear

With 40% of the world’s reactor’s under construction, China’s nuclear ambitions are vast and include a full-integrated domestic supply chain.  

Sweden is reconsidering phasing out nuclear power in favor of a 100% renewables power mix. The country’s 10 operating nuclear power plants produce about 40% of the Scandinavian country’s power. The remainder mostly comes from hydropower, depending on the season. The fourth-largest country in the European Union, Sweden’s electricity consumption has been gradually rising. Sweden […]

This August, in a bid to bolster its latent geothermal energy industry, Indonesia passed new laws that allow geothermal exploration in protected areas such as forests. Located in the Ring of Fire—a string of volcanoes and fault lines around the Pacific Basin—the archipelago has estimated potential geothermal resources of up to 29 GW. State power […]

A lack of rainfall is hitting the power industry especially hard in parts of Brazil. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the country depends on hydroelectricity for more than 75% of its electric power supply (Figure 2). But with reservoir levels at historic lows in some places, more electricity has been required from […]

Finland Rejects Permit Extension for Olkiluoto Reactor. Finland’s government on Sept. 25 rejected an application from utility Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO) to extend a permit for its proposed Olkiluoto 4 reactor for five years. TVO requested the extension in light of delays from its Olkiluoto 3 EPR project, which is being built by an AREVA-Siemens […]

India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) in September issued a proposal to vastly increase the county’s reliance on solar photovoltaic (PV) generation, taking installed capacity from its current 2.6 GW to more than 20 GW over the next five years. Following on the nation’s ambitious-but-troubled ultra-mega coal plant build-out—only one has come online, […]

Just as POWER predicted in its May issue (see “The Year Energy Storage Hit Its Stride”), energy storage is starting to gain traction, not only in the U.S., but around the globe. Europe’s largest commercial battery power plant was connected to the German grid in mid-September. With a power rating of 5 MW and an […]

The first full-scale commercial post-combustion carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) project at an operating coal-fired power plant is now online in Estevan, Saskatchewan, roughly 10 miles north of the U.S. border. The heart of the C$1.4 billion project at Boundary Dam Power Station is the rebuilt 110-MW Unit 3, originally commissioned in 1970. The project, […]

Vietnam won’t begin work on its first of eight planned nuclear power plants until at least 2020 or 2022 to ensure safety, the country’s Trade Ministry announced in September. Russia’s state-owned nuclear company Rosatom was expected to begin construction of the first two-reactor plant in the south-central province of Ninh Thuan at the end of […]

Before the polar vortex earlier this year, several severe cold weather events had presented comparable power generation operational challenges. POWER ranks those events here in terms of loss of generation capacity. Common themes observed in both severe and lesser cold weather incidents involve constraints on natural gas fuel supplies to generating plants, and generating unit […]

A 7,100-MW±600-kV high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) line that runs 2,375 kilometers (km) from new hydropower plants on the Madeira River in the Amazon Basin to major load centers in southeastern Brazil

Resource-rich Poland’s push to prioritize coal as its main energy source and to cultivate a nuclear power program to boost energy security at the expense of climate objectives has provoked its portrayal

Arizona-based solar photovoltaic (PV) system provider First Solar in August said it had achieved a cadmium-telluride (CdTe) PV research cell conversion efficiency of 21%—a world record. The thin-film PV

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) in August revealed that it had developed a 2-MW 16-cylinder high-speed gas engine that potentially offers a power generation efficiency (lower heating value) of more than

Gazprom on Sept. 1 made the first weld of a 4,000-km natural gas pipeline that will run from gas production centers in Russia’s Yakutia and Irkutsk gas production fields to Russia’s Far Eastern regions

Construction on a $1 billion commercial-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) system—one of the world’s largest to use post-combustion capture technology—began this July at NRG Energy’s W.A. Parish Unit 8 near Houston. The facility is expected to be operational by the end of 2016. Formerly known as the NRG Energy Parish CCS Project, it is […]