POWER

The near-simultaneous surge in U.S. natural gas production and recent enactment of environmental regulations will usher U.S. power supply from reliance on coal to increased usage of natural gas and renewables

In today’s world, it’s hard to operate a power plant without the benefit of information technology (IT) systems. Staff tasked with managing these systems can take a beating when the tools don’t work as advertised. Here’s how one IT department focused on building and sustaining cross-functional relationships, culminating in a win-win for the department and […]

The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), in conjunction with Suprock Technologies, has conducted a research project to develop and demonstrate an advanced wireless sensor technology for monitoring torque

All power generating companies and plant operators value reliability, but they may be paying too little attention to a critical variable: people. One million. That’s the approximate number of people in the sky over the U.S. as you read this article. Remarkably, all will land safely. Aviation achieves among the highest reliability of any industry. […]

The autonomous region of Xinjiang has a strategic position in China’s economy, yet several conditions limit the most effective use of its fuels. This article provides an overview of the situation. A more detailed version, with maps and tables, appears here under the same title. Since ancient times, the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (Xinjiang) has held […]

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is a country flush with fossil fuels, so why does its government want nuclear power to form the backbone of its electricity supply? POWER interviewed Emirates Nuclear Energy Corp. CEO Mohamed Al Hammadi to find the answer and to learn more about the world’s largest in-progress nuclear construction project. Located […]

January has traditionally been POWER’ s forecast issue, and there’s one overriding prediction I feel confident making: The speed of changes will continue to exceed the power industry’s ability to fully

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published the final version of the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan (CPP) on Oct. 23, 2015, and within hours more than two dozen challenges were filed

Grid resiliency has become a widely discussed topic recently. Experts have been called before congressional hearings to testify on the topic, and close calls—including a massive solar storm that missed Earth

Millennials have landed in the workforce. This is the generation that marketing and lifestyle gurus have been attempting to dissect, and now senior executives are starting to internalize what all the fuss was about—Millennials are a little different. At Student Energy, we’re working with university students to create the next generation of energy leaders. We […]

Editors note: Corrected (Dec. 7). A previous version of this infographic listed Russia’s nuclear total as 1.9 GW. It is 2.9 GW.

Florida’s Seminole Electric Cooperative faces what may be the most difficult generation transition in the nation as a result of the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan. One of the nation’s largest generation and transmission rural electric cooperatives, Seminole owes its origins and its current position primarily to a single coal-fired plant. When electric utility veteran […]

From space, the 12.7-kilometer (km) Sihwa Lake tidal barrage that houses a 400-meter (m)-long tidal power plant looks like a delicate strand stretched across one of many bays and inlets characterizing the

The first effluent limitation guidelines update since 1982 is game-changing for many U.S. power plants.

You can’t spell C-S-P without S-P-A-I-N. Though there are now many nations with concentrating solar power (CSP) plants in operation, and nations with larger ones than Spain possesses, it’s difficult to

It is true that electric motors and transformers are some of the most dependable pieces of equipment installed at power plants. They can, in many cases, withstand a high level of mistreatment while continuing

Solar power has taken off the training wheels. Once an afterthought, solar photovoltaic (PV) generation has been one of the major sources of new capacity for several years. According to statistics from the

Gas-fired power is booming—even more than expected. For only the second time ever, but also the second time this year, gas generated more electricity in a month in the U.S. than coal. According to statistics

In water-stressed regions outside the U.S., power producers and other industrial water users are incorporating higher levels of water reuse, some to the point of zero liquid discharge (ZLD), due to heightened

There’s an old saying in Washington that when everyone is upset, you’ve probably done something right. By that measure, the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) latest update to the National

Coal pulverizers are the heart of a pulverized coal-fueled boiler. Often, the root causes of nonoptimized combustion lie with the pulverizers. Capacity; reliability; and environmental issues such as slagging

The world has a problem. According to the World Bank, 1.1 billion people lack access to any form of modern energy service, and more than double that number lack access to adequate, reliable, affordable, and

One of the world’s largest biomass-fed organic rankine cycle (ORC) plants is getting ready to begin operations. Italian firm Turboden is preparing to put online an 8-MW power unit in Athens, Maine, that will

The challenge of getting a new generation of workers interested in the power sector is one I hear about frequently. Too many young adults are more fascinated by the tech sector, plant folks say. That may be

Ethiopia’s generation capacity got an immense boost as operations began at the 1.87-GW Gibe III hydroelectric power plant in the middle reach of the Omo River basin this October. The plant—Ethiopia’s

Germany’s nuclear power–producing companies will be able to shoulder the costs of the nuclear phase-out—including costs for decommissioning and the disposal of radioactive waste. That’s according to

The presence of unburned fuel in a power plant’s ash indicates an inefficient combustion process, as some of the energy in the fuel is being wasted. Unburned fuel also poses a risk to safety; if ignited, an

Battery storage firms and energy storage experts at the Energy Storage North America (ESNA) conference in San Diego Oct. 13–15 were effusive in their praise of battery storage’s potential while

Ultrasonic testing (UT) has long been a key method for detecting defects and service-induced degradation in nuclear and fossil plant components and for supporting remaining component life assessment. But it

Siemens, the only provider of direct-current (DC) offshore wind connection projects, in October unveiled a potentially game-changing technology that it says enables cheaper and simpler grid connection of wind