POWERnews

Today’s heat recovery steam generators (HRSGs) are suffering reliability problems, mainly because they’re being operated in the cycling mode instead of the baseload mode for which they were designed. The good news is HRSG suppliers are adapting to the market demands and are designing the next generation of HRSGs to have cycling-friendly—also called fast-start—features. One […]

Renewable energy and battery storage are hot topics in the U.S. today. Lawmakers throughout the country debated various new energy policies during the 2019 legislative session. Nevada is among the states leading the way forward. Several new laws were passed in the state that will affect power companies and consumers for years to come. Curt […]

California utility Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) has asked the judge overseeing its bankruptcy case to support restructured deals with some of the utility’s power suppliers in an effort to reduce the price PG&E pays for those companies’ electricity. The fate of $42 billion worth of long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs) is a key component […]

German utility RWE on August 1 announced it will close its last coal-fired power plant in the UK. The closure of the Aberthaw B power station in south Wales, scheduled by the end of March 2020, means just four coal plants will be operating in the UK. The plant originally was scheduled to be shuttered […]

August 1, 2019 Vogtle Nuclear Expansion Unlikely to Meet Aggressive Schedule Deadline A team that reviewed Southern Nuclear Company's (SNC’s) April 2019 Vogtle Units 3 and 4 Re-baseline of Forecast Schedule and Cost said it believes the working schedule predicated on commercial… Read More The POWER Interview: What Drove the Gas Turbine Technology Leap at […]

A new report released July 31 details continued growth in global energy storage, driven by lower costs for lithium-ion batteries. Research company BloombergNEF (BNEF) in its latest forecast published Wednesday said energy storage installations worldwide will grow across the next two decades, from the 9 GW/17 GWh of capacity deployed as of last year, to […]

A team that reviewed Southern Nuclear Company’s (SNC’s) April 2019 Vogtle Units 3 and 4 Re-baseline of Forecast Schedule and Cost said it believes the working schedule predicated on commercial operation dates of May 23, 2021, and May 23, 2022, for the respective units, is unachievable. Furthermore, the reviewers said the regulatory-approved schedule from the […]

On July 29, 1949, at 2:15 p.m., General Electric’s (GE’s) first gas turbine at the Belle Isle Station in Oklahoma City began delivering power to Oklahoma Gas and Electric Co.’s distribution system. The 3.5-MW GE Frame 3 machine reportedly had an efficiency of about 17%. Since the Belle Isle machine (Figure 1) started up seventy […]

NuScale Power, Rolls-Royce, and China National Nuclear Corp. (CNNC)—three companies working on different small modular reactor (SMR) technology—recently announced positive developments for their respective designs. NRC Makes Progress on NuScale Design Review Portland, Oregon-based NuScale said on July 22 that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) completed the second and third phases of its SMR […]

BHP and Mitsubishi Development Pty (MDP) in late June signed a memorandum of understanding for joint research, development, and deployment of greenhouse gas emissions reduction technologies in several countries, including projects with battery storage, solar, and carbon capture and storage (CCS). The agreement, signed in Tokyo, Japan, on June 20, also calls for research into […]

Nuclear power advocates suggest there are many benefits associated with nuclear energy. They point to high-paying jobs; billions of dollars in economic activity for plant-hosting communities; and secure, reliable, baseload electricity. But the most-important benefit of nuclear power may be that it emits no greenhouse gases, and therefore does not contribute to climate change. According […]

July 25, 2019 New York Enacts 100% Clean Energy Law, Secures 1.7 GW of Offshore Wind New York on July 18 enacted the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA),  law that requires the state to produce 100% of its power from renewables and nuclear by… Read More Sponsored Content Timken Power Systems: The Complete […]

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) on July 24 said it will decommission its Fukushima Daini nuclear station. The plant is located just south of the larger Fukushima Daiichi plant, site of a meltdown in March 2011 after an earthquake and tsunami heavily damaged the Daiichi facility. The four reactors at Daini automatically shut down after […]

Venture capital investments in battery storage companies and projects rose significantly year-over-year through the first six months of 2019, according to a report from Mercom Capital Group. That level of activity is consistent with the growth in energy storage noted by speakers on July 24 at the Storage Week Plus conference in San Francisco, California. […]

Ohio’s Gov. Mike DeWine (R) on July 23 quickly signed a controversial nuclear subsidy bill that narrowly passed the state’s House of Representatives on Tuesday, making Ohio the fifth state in the nation to prop up nuclear power.  Lawmakers passed H.B. 6 with a 51–38 vote Tuesday. The bill passed the state Senate on July […]

GE Renewable Energy’s mammoth offshore wind 12-MW Haliade-X  turbine is on track for an accelerated commercial launch in 2021, the company said as it unveiled the turbine’s first manufactured components on July 22. Haliade-X features a 220-meter (m) rotor and a 107-m blade designed by GE subsidiary LM Wind Power. The turbine design also includes […]

JEA, the electric utility in Jacksonville, Florida, has been decommissioning the St. Johns River Power Park over the past year. A third implosion as part of the decommissioning occurred July 19, as a 640-foot-tall stack and two steam generating boilers were demolished. Friday’s work followed similar implosions in June 2018, when the plant’s two, 464-foot-tall […]

New York on July 18 enacted the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA),  law that requires the state to produce 100% of its power from renewables and nuclear by 2040. The legislation includes agreements to build two offshore wind projects worth a combined 1.7 GW by 2025, the single largest renewable energy procurement in […]

A federal judge in Ohio on July 18 approved American Electric Power’s (AEP’s) plan to close Unit 1 of its two-unit, 2,600-MW coal-fired Rockport Plant in Indiana. The modified consent decree approved by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio on Thursday is the latest chapter in a long-running dispute among AEP, […]

In a bid to enhance the reactor oversight process (ROP), staff at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has recommended the commission change qualitative descriptions for some color labels that signify risk, scale back on the time and scope of some annual inspections at the nation’s nuclear power fleet, as well as increase intervals between inspections.  […]

According to the Energy Impact Center, a Washington, D.C.-based research institute focused on deep decarbonization, CO2 emissions “must go net-negative by 2040, globally across all energy sectors” to begin countering climate change. The only way it sees to accomplish this is to “produce energy inexpensive enough to make carbon negative fuels that compete with fossil […]

The Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) on July 16 threw its support behind Georgia Power’s plan to add 2,260 MW of new renewable power generation to the utility’s portfolio, on the same day the PSC signed off on the company’s effort to decommission its long-running coal-fired Plant Hammond. Georgia Power earlier this year submitted a […]

Investments in clean energy projects have hummed along in the past few years, with the growth of renewables worldwide continuing to increase levels of solar, wind, and other resources in the global energy mix. Thomas Byrne has been in the middle of this energy transformation. Byrne, co-founder and CEO of CleanCapital and a graduate of […]

New York City-based LS Power on July 15 said it would end a project to expand its natural gas-fired Troy power plant in Ohio if state lawmakers pass legislation to subsidize the state’s two nuclear power plants. LS Power in a news release Monday said, “Handouts to nuclear plants jeopardize the economics of the other […]

July 11, 2019 A Brief History of GE Gas Turbines July marks two important milestones that set gas-fired generation on its course to becoming a dominant form of power generation: commercial operation of the world’s first industrial gas turbine in… Read More Sponsored Content Timken Power Systems: The Complete Drivetrain Solution What happens when six […]

A fully digital nuclear reactor instrumentation and control system (I&C)—the first of its kind in the U.S.—at a Purdue University research reactor in West Lafayette, Indiana, has been licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).  Upgrades to digitalize Purdue University Reactor Number 1 (PUR 1)—a pool-type12-kWt reactor (that runs at 1 kW) originally built in […]

In a recent interview, Raul Pereda, president and CEO of PW Power Systems (PWPS), talked to POWER about the company’s long legacy as a gas turbine manufacturer, advancements in technology it has achieved over the past 60 years, and new applications for its turbines within a transitioning energy system.  No one can read a history […]

Investments in renewable energy projects slowed in the first half of 2019, primarily due to a 39% year-over-year drop in China, the world’s largest renewables market, according to data published July 10 by BloombergNEF (BNEF). BNEF said investments in China dropped to $28.8 billion, the lowest figure for any six-month period since 2013. China is […]

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and members of Congress are looking at legislation concerning research and regulation of energy storage. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who chairs the Energy and Natural Resources committee, on July 9 said there is bipartisan interest in combining a handful of bills on energy storage, dealing with research and development […]

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is behind on its proposed revisions to the Obama administration’s effluent limitations guidelines (ELGs) for steam electric power plants.  In an e-mail to POWER on July 9, the EPA confirmed that the agency was still “working expeditiously” to complete the proposed rule, and it has yet to submit it to […]