Global Monitor

French multinational power company ENGIE on October 20 inaugurated a mini-network comprising 16 kW of solar photovoltaic panels, a 45-kWh lithium-ion battery bank, and a back-up genset to supply power to Ketumbeine, a village in northern Tanzania with about 800 residents. The PowerCorner project (Figure 6) was launched in early 2015. ENGIE said the project […]

China’s third nuclear reactor built for the export market, Chashma Nuclear Power Plant Unit 3, was connected to Pakistan’s grid in mid-October. Chashma 3 is one of two Chinese-designed CNP-300 pressurized-water reactors being built on the site in Punjab Province. Unit 3 is expected to enter commercial operation at the end of 2016 and Unit […]

Europe’s first megawatt-size fuel cell went online in September. The 1.4-MW power plant put online by E.ON and FuelCell Energy Solutions in Mannheim, Germany, will provide power over the next 10 years, at least, for production processes of materials specialist FRIATEC. The plant was installed in only nine months as a joint project by E.ON […]

Vattenfall to Convert Berlin Coal Plants to Natural Gas. Sweden’s state-owned power company Vattenfall is phasing out the use of coal in Germany’s capital Berlin. The company on September 28 said it would

Four 1.5-MW tidal stream turbines that will make up the first phase of the massive MeyGen project proposed for installation in the Pentland Firth, have been fully assembled. Three of the turbines were built by Andritz Hydro Hammerfest. Tidal power generation firm Atlantis Resources, which owns 85% of the MeyGen project, built the remaining one, […]

In July 2016, the German parliament approved three major pieces of legislation specifically laying out the future of the celebrated Energiewende: the 2017 revision of the Renewable Energy Sources Act, the Electricity Market Act, and the Act on the Digitization of the Energy Transition. “These three pieces of legislation will ensure that the transition of […]

This September, Puerto Rico suffered an island-wide blackout that left 1.5 million utility customers without power for more than 50 hours and reportedly resulted in multimillion-dollar losses for its already troubled economy. The blackout in the U.S. territory with a population of about 3.5 million occurred on September 21, when a blaze erupted in a […]

Brazil’s environmental protection agency, IBAMA, in early August canceled development permits for an 8-GW hydroelectric project on concerns about its social and ecological impacts. If built as proposed by a consortium of multinational companies—including Brazilian parastatal Eletrobras and private sector partners GDF Suez/Engie, EDF, Camargo Correa, Neoenergia, COPEL, and Endesa Brasil—the São Luiz do Tapajós […]

One of the world’s first offshore tidal energy arrays was connected to Scotland’s grid this August. On its heels is the grid connection of a second array that is owned by a different company. Nova Innovation, a Scottish tidal energy company founded in 2010, on August 28 grid-connected the second of three 100-kW Nova M100 […]