POWERnews

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont on April 15 announced the Millstone Nuclear Power Station will stay open for at least another decade, thanks to a deal between Dominion, the plant’s owner, and utilities Eversource and United Illuminating, a subsidiary of Avangrid. Millstone, like other U.S. nuclear power plants, has been challenged by rising operating costs and […]

The U.S. Supreme Court’s refusal to reconsider industry-led challenges to state nuclear subsidy programs in New York and Illinois leaves the contentious matter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).  The high court on April 15 declined to accept petitions for review of decisions by the Second Circuit and Seventh Circuit, dealing a major blow […]

Ohio lawmakers on April 12 announced a plan to provide financial support to the state’s two nuclear power plants by adding a surcharge to customers’ electric bills. The bill’s supporters said it also would generate as much as $300 million annually for clean power generation in Ohio, though the measure calls for abolishing mandates for […]

April 11, 2019 PJM Will Hold Capacity Auction Under Current Rules in August PJM Interconnection said it will hold its 2022–2023 capacity auction under current market rules on Aug. 14, 2019, though the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has yet to issue a… Read More Sponsored Content Piping Solutions Using Non-Welded Connections For hydropower and […]

Legislation recently introduced in the U.S. House that would expand the federal solar investment tax credit (ITC) to energy storage technologies has gained the backing of major trade groups  representing the solar, hydropower, and wind sectors. The Energy Storage Tax Incentive and Deployment Act (H.R. 2096), introduced on April 4 by Reps. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.), […]

Construction activity on wind projects across the U.S. surged to a record level of more than 20 GW in the third quarter of 2018, and about 35.1 GW of new wind capacity was under construction or in advanced development at the end of 2018, according to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA).  In 2018, the […]

Time is winding down for lawmakers interested in enacting legislation to save the Three Mile Island (TMI) nuclear plant. That message was amplified on April 5 when Exelon Corp. filed the federally required Post Shutdown Decommissioning Activities Report (PSDAR) with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The PSDAR details plans for TMI Unit 1 after its final […]

Cybersecurity firm FireEye has uncovered and is responding to a new intrusion at an unnamed critical infrastructure facility that it suggests in an April 10 blog post was perpetrated by the group behind the TRITON attack, which prompted a process shutdown at a Middle Eastern facility in 2017. But while details of the new attack are sparse, […]

PJM Interconnection said it will hold its 2022–2023 capacity auction under current market rules on Aug. 14, 2019, though the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has yet to issue a decision on the grid operator’s plan to revamp its Minimum Offer Price Rule (MOPR). In an April 10 filing, however, PJM asked FERC to clarify that […]

Financing has reportedly been secured for a 1,600-MW coal-fired power plant in India’s eastern state of Jharkhand. Qatar’s Gulf Times newspaper reported April 6 that Power Finance Corp., a state-run lender in India, and its subsidiary REC approved a $1.5 billion loan for the project. The report said the new plant would be funded through loans […]

The world’s first complete advanced nuclear fuel test assemblies containing accident-tolerant fuel (ATF) have been installed at Southern Co.’s Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant’s Unit 2 in Georgia.  Nuclear giant Framatome delivered four GAIA lead fuel assemblies containing enhanced ATF (EATF), including both pellets and cladding, to the plant owned by Georgia Power in […]

April 4, 2019 How the DOE Is Looking to Save Hydropower The Department of Energy (DOE) unveiled a slate of measures to help U.S. hydropower thrive as costs for wind and solar plummet. Measures will include a roadmap to identify hydro’s… Read More Sponsored Content Get Ahead of the Varnish Problem The easiest problem to […]

Coal combustion was responsible for more than 0.3 degrees C of the 1-degree C surge in global average annual surface temperatures above pre-industrial levels—and that makes coal the single largest source of the global temperature increase, the International Energy Agency (IEA) says in a new report.  The finding, outlined in the IEA’s Global Energy & […]

PG&E Corp. announced on April 3 the appointment of William “Bill” Johnson as the company’s new president and CEO. It also announced the appointment of 10 new directors to its board of directors. The board appointments will be effective as of the next in-person board meeting, which will be held as soon as practicable, the […]

The Department of Energy (DOE) unveiled a slate of measures to help U.S. hydropower thrive as costs for wind and solar plummet. Measures will include a roadmap to identify hydro’s value in a future grid, and a first-of-its-kind prize designed to encourage innovative and faster pumped storage construction techniques. In her opening speech at Waterpower […]

Florida Power & Light Co. (FPL) has been building new solar farms and bringing gigawatts of new natural gas-fired generation capacity online in recent years. Now the utility has announced what it calls the world’s largest solar-powered battery storage system. FPL on March 28 said the Manatee Energy Storage Center, a 409-MW/900-MWh battery storage facility, […]

North Carolina officials have ordered Duke Energy to excavate all its coal ash storage ponds in the state, saying the utility’s current plan for its coal ash sites does not sufficiently protect groundwater. The directive issued April 1 comes after regulators in other states, including Virginia, issued similar rulings regarding coal ash disposal in those […]

Upper Michigan Energy Resources Corp. (UMERC) placed two new natural gas-fired generating stations into commercial operation on March 31, part of the company’s plan to reshape its generation fleet as it seeks to “balance reliability and customer cost with environmental stewardship.” UMERC, a subsidiary of WEC Energy Group, also retired the coal-fired 430-MW Presque Isle […]

While conventional power plant cycles produce power from turbines using water or steam as the working fluid, supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) cycles use CO2 that is in a supercritical state—at a temperature and pressure above its critical point where liquid and gas phases are not distinguishable.  CO2 has a relatively low critical pressure of 7.4 megapascal […]

When conversations around the power industry turn to computer hacking, more often than not experts say it’s not a question of if, but rather, how systems have been compromised. William Doering, adjunct professor in the online Master’s in Business Administration program at Maryville University and a director with Guidehouse—a management consulting services provider—said he has participated […]

A wide-ranging bill introduced by a large group of bipartisan U.S. senators on March 27 seeks to cement the role advanced nuclear reactors will play in the nation’s future power mix.  The “Nuclear Energy Leadership Act” (NELA), aims to “reestablish U.S. leadership in nuclear energy,” which has been lost to state-sponsored development in Russia and […]

March 28, 2019 Trump Acts on Critical Infrastructure Resiliency Against EMP Threats President Trump has signed an executive order (EO) to boost coordination for and national resilience against electromagnetic pulse (EMP) threats—both from nuclear warfare and natural events like solar superstorms. The action… Read More Sponsored Content ELECTRIC POWER 2019 is Next Month! POWER, the single […]

The Department of Energy (DOE) is funding a project that would prepare Westinghouse’s 25-MWe eVinci micro-reactor for nuclear demonstration readiness by 2022.  The agency on March 27 said it will provide $12.9 million of the estimated $28.6 million Westinghouse needs for a project to prepare the micro-reactor for a demonstration, including for design, analysis, licensing […]

Several power-sector CEOs—appearing at the Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) Summit in New York this week—suggested that existing nuclear power plants should not be allowed to slowly vanish from the U.S. electricity grid under market pressure caused by cheap natural gas and the growth of renewable energy. The leaders submitted that nuclear power provides important […]

Depending on the deployment location and competing energy prices, photovoltaic solar panels are among the most cost-effective power solutions being added to the grid today, often without subsidies and other incentives. The revelation came during a panel discussion—which included several CEOs from the power sector—that took place at the Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) Summit […]

President Trump has signed an executive order (EO) to boost coordination for and national resilience against electromagnetic pulse (EMP) threats—both from nuclear warfare and natural events like solar superstorms. The action suggests new federal mandates to protect critical infrastructure against EMP events and attacks may be on the horizon.  Senior Trump administration officials from the National Security […]

Siemens, Three Mile Island, and Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) made notable headlines over recent days. Here is this week’s POWER notebook.  Siemens Bags First Order for 41-MW Aeroderivative Gas Unit Siemens on March 25 said it received its first order for its newest aeroderivative gas turbine offering—the SGT-A45. The buyer, Bayat Power, a subsidiary […]

After a Navajo tribal council on March 21 voted 11–9 to block acquisition of the Navajo Generating Station (NGS) and Peabody Energy’s Kayenta coal mine, the Navajo Transitional Energy Co. (NTEC) announced it would drop its bid to keep the 2.3-GW coal-fired plant near Page, Arizona, open.  NTEC, a company wholly owned by the Navajo […]

GE introduced its GT26 HE (high efficiency) gas turbine upgrade on March 25 by announcing Uniper would be the first to install the new technology at the company’s Enfield Power Station in London, England. “We’re proud to launch our new GT26 HE upgrade with Uniper—it’s the most advanced solution we’ve ever introduced on a GT26 […]

Energy Secretary Rick Perry on March 22 said his department will guarantee up to $3.7 billion in additional loans to finance continued construction of two new nuclear reactors at the Vogtle plant in Georgia. While Perry and other government officials stressed the importance of the project to the U.S. nuclear industry, critics called it a […]