Global Monitor

Court Forces Bulgaria to Pay for One of Two Canceled Reactors at Belene. Bulgaria’s National Electricity Co.(NEK) should pay Russia’s Atomstroyexport nearly $620 million in compensation for its canceled two-unit Belene nuclear plant, an international arbitration court in Geneva ruled in mid-June. The 2-GW plant was in the offing for more than two decades before NEK […]

In a major shakeup of a power sector currently monopolized by a state-owned giant, South Korea has moved to partially open its electricity generation market to private companies in a bid to improve efficiency

Sweden, which has been contemplating the role of its 10 nuclear reactors in its future power mix, said in June it will phase out a tax on nuclear power over the next two years and replace aging plants with new ones. The agreement by the Social Democrats, the Moderate Party, the Green Party, the Centre […]

Dutch power grid operator TenneT on June 10 unveiled plans for a large-scale island transmission hub in the North Sea that could connect numerous offshore wind farms and transmit their generated power to the Netherlands, the UK, Belgium, Norway, Germany, and Denmark via direct current (DC) cables. Those cables, or “spokes” could also serve as […]

A severe water crisis gripping India this year has forced several of the country’s hydroelectric and thermal power plants to shut down. At least 10 of India’s 29 states have been stricken by severe drought after the monsoons failed for two seasons in a row (as of the start of July, the monsoons had still […]

Poland, a country where hard coal and lignite power plants currently generate about 85% of the power, has passed a law that stymies a wind power expansion and is now mulling draft legislation that will help boost investments in new coal capacity. The eastern European country has bucked the trend toward renewable power that many […]

The first-ever early site permit (ESP) application for a small modular reactor (SMR) was submitted to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) this May, marking a resurgence for the fledgling nuclear energy technology that has seen a number of setbacks in recent years. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) submitted an ESP application for a potential […]

Fuel Loading Begins at Kudankulam 2. Nuclear Power Corp. of India (NPCIL) began loading the first of 163 fuel assemblies into the core of the second VVER-1000 reactor of the Kudankulam nuclear power plant in Tamil Nadu, India, on May 11. The 1,000-MW unit will begin generating power pending approval from the Atomic Energy Regulatory […]

Lake Kivu, the 1,040-square-mile “killer lake” that stretches over the border between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), has long been a source of trepidation. Because it sits between two