POWER

When Gary Leonard, General Electric’s global technology director for aero-thermal and mechanical systems technologies, spoke with POWER Contributing Editor Mark Axford at this year’s Gulf Coast Power

Aging human machine interface (HMI) hardware will eventually become a burden on plant operation. Obsolete HMIs can cause problems with connectivity, historical data loss, and hardware failure. As the hardware

P at Wood III —former head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Texas Public Utility Commission, and current consultant and non-executive chairman of Dynegy—addressed a packed house at the

South Korea, the world’s fourth-largest producer of nuclear power, in June warned of “unprecedented” power shortages this summer after it shut down two reactors due to faulty safety equipment and delayed the start of operations of another last month.

In Japan, where all but two of 50 reactors remain shuttered for safety checks following the 2011 Fukushima catastrophe, at least four major utilities were gearing up to apply for safety screening of 12 reactors across six plants.

A proposal to build a $45.8 billion fixed barrage across the Severn estuary, between Brean in England and Lavernock Point in Wales, suffered another blow in June as an influential UK parliamentary committee deemed a high-profile privately financed proposal unsatisfactory for environmental and economic reasons.

A technology developed by the University of Delaware (UD) and NRG Energy that provides a two-way interface between electric vehicles and the power grid earlier this year became an official paid resource on PJM Interconnection’s regional grid (Figure 4). One of the first of its kind, the project proves the so-called “vehicle-to-grid” (V2G) concept can sell electricity from electric vehicles.

An updated estimate of technically recoverable global shale gas resources by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) puts them at 7,299 trillion cubic feet (tcf)—10% higher than estimated in 2011.

UN Report on Global Renewable Energy Investment. The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) released its report Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2013 on June 11, finding that renewable energy investment at the global level was $244 billion in 2012. However, global investments in renewable energy fell 12% compared to 2011 due to dramatically lower […]

A municipal utility in the South may not be where you’d expect to find an exemplary smart grid implementation, but that’s just fine with EPB Chattanooga. Its leaders are raking in the kudos—including POWER’s 2013 Smart Grid Award—and their community is attracting new businesses in response to a fiber-optic-based system that has helped raise the profile of their city and bolster the sustainability of their utility.

Repowering two units at the J.T. Dudley, Sr. Generation Complex added 180 MW of high-efficiency capacity to South Mississippi Electric’s portfolio. Now the cooperative can self-produce more than 50% of its electricity needs.

Steve Elonka began chronicling the exploits of Marmaduke Surfaceblow—a six-foot-four marine engineer with a steel brush mustache and a foghorn voice—in POWER in 1948, when Marmy raised the wooden mast of the SS Asia Sun with the help of two cobras and a case of Sandpaper Gin. Marmy’s simple solutions to seemingly intractable plant problems remain timeless. This Classic Marmaduke story, published more than 50 years ago, reminds us that even the most modern steam plant is only as good as its operators.

Although nearly all energy experts agree that demand for electric energy in Texas will outstrip supply in the coming years, developers of new power generation facilities are facing significant headwinds. The cause of the problems is a unique mix of circumstances.

President Obama’s recent comments on climate change and the need for additional federal regulation of greenhouse gases carelessly handled the science he quotes.

In order to burn abundant supplies of coal globally while minimizing carbon dioxide emissions, cheaper methods of capturing, using, and storing greenhouse gas emissions from power plants are needed. A new federal agency is on the leading edge of identifying and supporting promising technologies.

Meaningful, yet often hidden thermal performance losses occur in feedwater heaters.

Gravity Power LLC—a startup based in Santa Barbara, California—has developed a low-cost, quick-start, and fast dynamic response energy storage technology that competes with classical pumped storage hydro and gas turbines for peaking and intermediate duty power generation. The system is simple, yet its potential is profound.

The backlash against renewable portfolio standards (RPSs) has begun in earnest. In more than 20 states across the country, efforts are afoot to freeze, water down, or repeal one standard or another.

240-W LED High-Bay Light for Hazardous Areas Larson Electronics released the the HAL-HB-240W-LED 240-W LED light for high-bay and floodlight applications in Class 1 Division 2 areas. Available with 19-, 25-, 40- and 125-degree optic configuration, this high-powered LED light comes closer to replicating 1,000-W metal halide illumination. At 240 W, the HAL-HB-240W-LED Class 1 […]

AEP’s SWEPCO requested proposals in December 2005 for new generation to meet long-term capacity needs, and by August 2006 the company settled on coal-fired technology for a new plant site in Arkansas. Construction began in early 2008, and the new plant entered commercial service in December 2012. For overcoming numerous legal and regulatory obstacles and for building the first ultrasupercritical plant in the U.S., the John W. Turk, Jr. plant is awarded POWER’s 2013 Plant of the Year Award.

The theologian John Wesley, so taken with electricity, reverently called it the soul of the universe. Less impressed, perhaps, are state regulatory commissions that nonetheless set service territory boundaries to avoid the added expense in duplicative facilities. Becoming the sole source of the good stuff also invited regulation of rates, service standards, and whatever else […]

Te Mihi Power Station is a two-unit 166-MW geothermal plant currently undergoing commissioning on New Zealand’s North Island. It replaces the Wairakei Power Station constructed in 1958—but with a much smaller environmental footprint. The double flash technology selected produces ~25% more power from the same amount of geothermal fluid that is currently used at Wairakei. For its continuing commitment to renewable geothermal energy, Contact Energy Ltd.’s Te Mihi Power Station is the winner of POWER’s 2013 Marmaduke Award for excellence in power plant problem-solving. The award is named for Marmaduke Surfaceblow, the fictional marine engineer and plant troubleshooter par excellence.

Two VVER-1000 reactors built and designed by Russian state firm Atomstroyexport under a $3 billion contract are slated to be commissioned this summer in the State of Tamil Nadu in India.

Last month’s column, “Opinions à la Carte,” prompted an unusually high number of emails from readers. Unexpectedly, the responses to the different format were universally favorable.

With ever-increasing demands for fast ramping and flexibility, natural gas–fired plants are grabbing a bigger share of the generation pie. But uncertainty about future prices and concerns about overreliance on a single fuel are dampening enthusiasm during what may be the most exciting time for gas ever. Natural gas is hot—but will generators and the market get burned?

Water scarcity as it relates to energy use is becoming a major concern.

With the country awash in natural gas and new construction dominated by gas-fired plants, one would think that integrating these plants into the grid would be simple. Like politics, integration problems appear to be local.

Energy policy in the European Union (EU) is in upheaval as concerns mount over the impact of energy costs on the competitiveness of the power industry.

It’s easy to see why technologists fall in love with high-temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGRs). These nuclear machines are remarkable inventions, at least on paper. But few have actually seen the real world for any length of time, and their real-world experience has been mixed.