POWER

The technologies used to generate and distribute electricity will be radically transformed during the coming decade. Amid that change, the power industry must continue to meet customer reliability, safety, and cost-of-service expectations. Achieving the right balance among these often-conflicting goals is the primary focus of every utility. The Electric Power Research Institute is helping utilities achieve that balance with R&D programs for many new and emerging technologies.

The New Year will be pivotal for the power generation industry, as you will read in our 2012 Industry Forecast (p. 26) and my list of predictions below. Looking back over the past year, I again gave myself a B+ on my 2011 predictions (see p. 33 for a rundown of my individual scores).

The Five-Year Plan is the expression of the centralized planning goals for China’s economy. The 12th Five-Year Plan, approved by the Chinese Government on March 14, 2011, established many social and economic goals, including significant expansion of the country’s power generation industry in many new directions.

Yes, you’ve read it right. Upbraiding, not upgrading.

Employees at the 293-MW Muscatine Power & Water plant combine a positive attitude with an aggressive focus on workplace safety, inspired by the motto: “We all can adapt, adopt, and improve to meet the challenges head on to provide our customers with reliable power.” The facility began using Powder River Basin coal in 1993, and the staff have learned effective techniques to use it safely.

After years of political wrangling, coal-rich Australia in November passed legislation that will require the nation’s top 500 polluters, starting in July 2012, to pay a tax at a fixed price of A$23 (US$23.50) per ton of carbon. The tax increases 2.5% annually until 2015, when an emissions trading program will begin. With the Kyoto […]

Navigant’s Operational Excellence Awards are presented annually to those North American coal-fired generation plants that have demonstrated excellence in cost-efficient reliable plant performance over the preceding five-year period. The data used to select the winners derives from Navigant’s Generation Knowledge Service fossil database.

Driven by policies to limit carbon emissions, as well as government subsidies, the share of worldwide nonhydro renewable power is set to grow from just 3% in 2009 to 15% in 2035, the International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts in its recently released World Energy Outlook 2011. Under the same scenario—which assumes that carbon pricing, explicit […]

For each of the past 10 years, nearly 1,200 U.S. construction workers have died as the result of injuries received on the job. Of these fatalities, 25% involved heavy equipment—most categorized as struck-by incidents. Remote sensing and visualization technology promises to improve worker situational awareness on congested and busy work sites.

After more than a decade debating whether to pass a carbon-limiting law, Australia’s Senate in November voted in a landmark bill that will impose a price on carbon emissions. The country, which accounts for just 1.5% of global carbon emissions, but which is the world’s highest emitter per capita because 80% of its power comes […]