POWERnews

As the existing electric generation infrastructure matures, electric generation system owners are looking to the future for newer and greener technologies to meet the demands of electric consumption. An important part of this future perspective may include the demolition and removal of older generation plants and facilities to free up land resources for new development.  Prior […]

The Biden administration on March 29 laid out a spate of measures to deploy 30 GW of offshore wind in the U.S. by 2030, an ambitious target that will require a vast scale-up in investment and build-out of the still latent power subsector. But if achieved, the target would unlock “a pathway” to 110 GW […]

POWER Magazine   Jobs   White Papers  Webinars   Events   Store   March 29, 2021 DOE Backs Projects to Produce Hydrogen from Coal, Biomass The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced the agency has awarded $2 million to four research and development (R&D) projects aimed at advancing clean-hydrogen production technologies. The DOE's awards on… […]

POWER Magazine   Jobs   White Papers  Webinars   Events   Store   March 25, 2021 BP Details Plan for UK's Largest Hydrogen Project The global market for hydrogen development has taken another step forward, as oil and gas major BP announced it is studying development of what it said would be the UK's… Sponsored […]

Centrus Energy, a firm under contract with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to demonstrate production of high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) with domestic technology, says it expects to begin producing the advanced nuclear fuel material by June 2022 at the American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon, Ohio. Centrus President and CEO Daniel Poneman said on March […]

If you were alive and living in the U.S. during the 1970s, you probably remember waiting in long lines to fill your car with fuel. Yet, gasoline wasn’t the only item in short supply during the “Me Decade”—natural gas was seemingly running out and electricity demand was growing so much that new power plants were […]

General Electric (GE) will provide two of the company’s 9HA.01 gas turbines along with other equipment and services to a new power plant in Malaysia. The company on March 24 announced it secured an order from a consortium of three groups, including Mitsubishi Corp., that is serving as the engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) lead […]

The global market for hydrogen development has taken another step forward, as oil and gas major BP announced it is studying development of what it said would be the UK’s largest blue hydrogen production facility.   BP on March 18 said the project, which would be sited on England’s northeast coast, is part of a […]

The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) has kicked off a five-year partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to educate state public service commissioners and commission staff about barriers and possibilities related to the U.S. nuclear fleet.  The non-profit organization whose members include state regulatory agencies in all 50 states said on March […]

Southern Co. has announced another delay in hot functional testing for the first unit of its two-unit expansion at the Vogtle nuclear plant in Georgia. The utility in a March 19 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said its subsidiary Georgia Power “now expects the start of hot functional testing for Unit 3 […]

POWER Magazine   Jobs   White Papers  Webinars   Events   Store   March 18, 2021 DOE Backs Projects to Produce Hydrogen from Coal, Biomass The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced the agency has awarded $2 million to four research and development (R&D) projects aimed at advancing clean-hydrogen production technologies. The DOE's awards on… […]

In late 2013, Mexico embarked on a path to transform its energy markets. Then-President Enrique Peña-Nieto oversaw constitutional reforms that ended state-run monopolies, and opened Mexico’s power market to competition and investment from foreign and private companies. By most accounts, the policies were highly effective in spurring investments in renewable energy and efficient natural gas-fired […]

Researchers who study the U.S. offshore wind industry have issued a new report that says the sector could potentially meet 90% of the nation’s electricity demand by 2050. The key is for offshore wind to be fully developed along the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf coasts, as well as in the Great Lakes, all areas the […]

Arthur D’Andrea, the chair of the Texas Public Utility Commission (PUC), who took the post just two weeks ago, has resigned. D’Andrea was the only remaining PUC commissioner and is the latest state official to decamp their position in the wake of a deadly winter storm in February that overwhelmed Texas’ energy infrastructure. Texas Gov. […]

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued an update and finalized a pollution rule that will require reductions in ozone emissions from power plants in 12 states this year. The update to the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR), issued March 15, is designed to curb emissions of nitrogen oxide (NOx)—primarily from coal-fired power plants—ahead […]

Energy storage already is transforming power generation, and most industry analysts say the potential for storage is limited only by its technology. As batteries improve—and certainly as they become more durable, safer, and cost-effective to install—energy storage will continue to be deployed in more places. Zinc-air batteries have long been used in a variety of […]

The U.S. solar industry installed a record 19.2 GWdc of photovoltaic (PV) capacity in 2020, a 43% increase from 2019, according to a report released by the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and Wood Mackenzie. The numbers are particularly impressive considering the world was dealing with unique challenges as a result of COVID-19. “After a […]

JERA, Japan’s largest power generation company, has submitted a scoping document to begin assessing the environmental impact of its plan to add two gas-fired units at the Chita Thermal Power Station, while decommissioning five existing units at the facility. The company filed the report with government officials on March 16, with a 30-day public comment […]

Utilities have a two-fold relationship with energy efficiency. On one side, public and private utilities gain from finding efficiencies in energy usage to reduce costs in their own operations—just like many other businesses. The U.S. Department of Energy’s 2002 Motor Market Assessment established that pumping systems offer the greatest optimization potential of all types of […]

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced the agency has awarded $2 million to four research and development (R&D) projects aimed at advancing clean-hydrogen production technologies. The DOE’s awards on March 15 are part of a push by the Biden administration in its fight against climate change. Jennifer Granholm, the new Secretary of Energy and […]

POWER Magazine   Jobs   White Papers  Webinars   Events   Store   March 15, 2021 ERCOT Lists Generators Forced Offline During Texas Extreme Cold Event The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) in freshly revealed data on March 4 reported that the Texas grid suffered 1,796 generating or energy storage outages or derates as […]

The regulatory group that oversees Texas’ deregulated power market has identified eight areas the agency will focus on as it continues to study the state’s response to a mid-February storm that left millions of electricity customers without power for several days. Texas power customers, along with electricity generators and retail power providers, continue to grapple […]

POWER Magazine   Jobs   White Papers  Webinars   Events   Store   March 11, 2021 ERCOT Lists Generators Forced Offline During Texas Extreme Cold Event The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) in freshly revealed data reported that the Texas grid suffered 1,796 generating or energy storage outages or derates as winter… Floating Energy […]

When evaluating resource adequacy requirements, many power companies and grid operators have used a methodology that originated more than 70 years ago. This probabilistic reliability approach has generally performed adequately through the years. It has generally evaluated loss-of-load events occurring at frequencies of one-day-in-10-years (1-in-10) to be acceptable in terms of system reliability. However, it’s […]

The Arab world’s first nuclear power plant has received an operating license for its second unit, and the facility’s timeline still calls for commercial start-up of the first unit later this year. The Barakah nuclear power station, in the Al Dhafrah region of Abu Dhabi, will include four units with 5,600 MW of generating capacity […]

Floating energy storage systems are being developed for use in areas wanting to increase their use of renewable energy, but with constraints on the land available that could be used for solar and wind farms or land-based energy storage. Southeast Asia is one area ready to utilize such installations. The technology group Wärtsilä on March […]

GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) and Estonian firm Fermi Energia OÜ have entered into a teaming agreement to support potential deployment of a BWRX-300 small modular reactor (SMR) in the Baltic country. The agreement between the technology company and the firm established in 2019 by nuclear industry professionals comes two years after the companies inked […]

The federal agency in charge of U.S. offshore energy management said it has completed the final environmental analysis for a proposed 800-MW offshore wind project, paving the way for the nation’s first commercial-scale development of its kind to move forward. The U.S. Dept. of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) on March 8 […]

Russia’s state-owned nuclear power company Rosatom continues to diversify, as one of the group’s subsidiaries has acquired a major stake in a South Korean manufacturer of energy storage products. RENERA LLC, which is Rosatom’s integrator company for the energy storage business, and also a subsidiary of TVEL Fuel Company of Rosatom, on March 5 announced […]

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) in freshly revealed data on March 4 reported that the Texas grid suffered 1,796 generating or energy storage outages or derates as winter storm Uri bore down on the state in mid-February.  The grid operator made the list public in a letter it sent to lawmakers in the […]