POWERnews

Siemens AG, the parent company of Siemens Power and Gas, is contemplating the sale of its lucrative but lately troubled gas turbine business, according to one major news outlet. Citing unnamed sources, Bloomberg on June 13 reported that the German giant may be considering the sale of its power and gas business, possibly to a […]

The U.S. Department of the Treasury on June 11 slapped sanctions on five Russian firms and three Russian individuals for several “significant” malicious cyber-enabled activities, including cyber intrusions in the U.S. energy grid. The department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said the sanctions are authorized under President Obama’s Executive Order 13694, “Blocking the Property of Certain […]

President Trump wants to provide financial support to struggling coal and nuclear power plants. He’s told the Department of Energy (DOE) to make it happen. But a bipartisan group of lawmakers on Capitol Hill, along with commissioners from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), made it clear June 12 they don’t support federal government intervention […]

General Electric’s (GE’s) power unit has said it will end manufacturing operations at its plant in Salem, Virginia, next year, with more than 260 workers losing their jobs, according to union officials. Officials noted that 42% of the affected workers are eligible for retirement. The plan announced June 8 said the Salem plant, which opened […]

Tests of a boiler combustion tuning system employing artificial intelligence (AI) at a Taiwanese coal-fired power unit verify improvements to fuel economy that could ultimately reduce costs by up to $1 million annually, Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems (MHPS) announced on June 11. Verification testing of the AI-enabled combustion tuning system was conducted at Unit 2 […]

Employees at Basin Electric Power Cooperative’s 385-MW coal-fired Dry Fork Station are all safe after a tornado touched down at the plant’s site in Gillette, Wyoming, on June 1. The company described the harrowing hour before and after the tornado hit the plant and surrounding area. Though the plant “mostly avoided damage,” employee safety protocol […]

June 7, 2018 Exelon CEO Clarifies Headline-Grabbing No-Grid-Emergency Comment Chris Crane, CEO of Exelon Corp., seemed to take umbrage with the way comments he made on June 5 were reported by Utility Dive. The website published the headline “Exelon… Read More Sponsored Content Microgrids have the Potential to Reduce Power Outages and Electric Costs With […]

A suburban Chicago-based energy company executive on June 7 told Arizona officials his group is putting together a proposal to purchase the Navajo Generating Station (NGS), the largest coal-fired power plant in the western U.S. The plant’s current owners have said they will close the 2,250-MW facility by year-end 2019 unless a buyer is found. […]

A long-stalled plan to repower NRG Energy’s coal-fired 435-MW Dunkirk power plant in Chautauqua County, near Buffalo, New York, to natural gas may be scrapped, owing to uncertainty involving New York Independent System Operator’s (NYISO’s) interconnection process, the company said. NRG mothballed all four units at the plant by January 2016 during four years of […]

Xcel Energy, citing “historically low” costs for wind and solar power, said it wants to double its generation from renewable sources. Colorado’s largest utility also said it will retire two coal-fired units representing 660 MW at its Comanche Generating Station in Pueblo at least 10 years ahead of schedule. The changes were outlined in a […]

The Trump administration’s attempt to prop up uneconomic “fuel secure” generators in competitive markets is just the latest in a string of recent “extra-market” interventions that experts said imperil independent organized markets for electricity. In a recent white paper, Raymond Gifford and Matthew Larson, energy partners at Wilkinson Barker Knauer LLP, said the restructured administrative […]

The Edison Electric Institute (EEI), an industry association that represents all U.S. investor-owned electric companies, made a point during its annual convention of recognizing the mutual assistance workers who labored tirelessly to restore power to Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria. Nearly 200 personnel, who had worked on the ground in Puerto Rico, gathered on stage […]

Chris Crane, CEO of Exelon Corp., seemed to take umbrage with the way comments he made on June 5 were reported by Utility Dive. The website published the headline “Exelon CEO: No grid emergency to justify DOE coal, nuke bailout,” but Crane went out of his way to clarify his position while on stage participating […]

The Navajo Generating Station (NGS) in Arizona is scheduled to close by year-end 2019, but intervention by the federal government could keep the West’s largest coal-fired power plant operating. At the same time, more than 300 of the plant’s workers, along with family members, union representatives and tribal leaders, held a rally in Phoenix on […]

Optimization through advanced testing and modeling tools will increase NuScale Power’s small modular reactor (SMR) capacity by 20%, which could make it “even more competitive with other electricity generation sources,” the Portland, Oregon, company announced on June 6. The breakthrough would boost the power capacity of a 12-module SMR plant currently planned by Utah Associated Municipal […]

Few entities have expressed approval of the Trump administration’s plan that includes a directive for system operators to buy or arrange purchase of energy or capacity from designated “fuel secure” power plants for two years until the Department of Energy (DOE) can address “grid security” challenges. The 41-page draft memo dated May 29—which was presumably authored […]

Reactions from U.S. energy and legal and regulatory groups began pouring in minutes after the White House confirmed on June 1 that President Trump has directed the Department of Energy (DOE) to act immediately to stop the loss of uneconomic coal and nuclear plants.  White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in a June 1 […]

A draft memo circulated by the Trump administration before the National Security Council urges federal action to force grid operators to buy power from uneconomic coal and nuclear plants. Bloomberg on May 31 first pointed to the existence of the 41-page memo, which is dated May 29 and distributed Thursday. The memo outlines plans for a […]

May 31, 2018 DOJ, FERC Back Illinois in Nuclear Subsidy Fight The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on May 29 told the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals that Illinois’ nuclear subsidy program does… Read More Sponsored Content Microgrids have the Potential to Reduce Power Outages and Electric […]

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on May 29 told the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals that Illinois’ nuclear subsidy program does not preempt federal statute, siding with the state and Exelon Corp. in a contentious legal fight that has divided the power sector. The case, now […]

The first of about 400 workers remaining at the soon-to-close Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in New Jersey will begin leaving their jobs over the next few weeks, according to a notice filed this month by Exelon Corp. with the state’s Department of Labor and Workforce Development. The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) filing […]

Officials with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) plan to hold a public hearing May 31 on the safety record of the Arkansas Nuclear One power plant in Arkansas, whose two units are among three cited by the agency for poor performance and other problems in its annual assessment of the nation’s nuclear fleet. The […]

First-fire has been achieved at NET Power’s supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO₂) power plant—a test facility in La Porte, Texas, to demonstrate the potentially revolutionary natural gas–fueled Allam Cycle. The project is designed to produce low-cost electricity from natural gas while generating near-zero atmospheric emissions, including full CO₂ capture. NET Power, which is based in Durham, […]

Public power utility Salt River Project (SRP) will launch Arizona’s first battery energy storage project to provide flexible peaking capacity. Energy storage firm Fluence will supply a 10-MW, four-hour duration system to AES Corp., which has a 20-year agreement with SRP for the project to be built in Chandler. AES owns Fluence in partnership with […]

Shares of General Electric (GE) have fallen about 50% over the past year, and on May 23 GE saw its stock drop more than 7%, its biggest one-day loss since April 20, 2009. Much of Wednesday’s decline came as CEO John Flannery was speaking to attendees at the Electrical Products Group (EPG) conference in Longboat […]

A bill that would have provided more cost-recovery certainty for Xcel Energy’s two Minnesota nuclear plants didn’t get through the state House of Representatives prior to the legislative session ending on May 20, effectively killing the measure. The bill would have allowed Xcel to submit proposals to the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (MPUC) designating each […]

May 24, 2018 Exelon: Record Amount of Nuclear Capacity Failed to Clear PJM Auction Exelon Corp.’s Three Mile Island, Dresden, and all but a small portion of its Byron nuclear plants failed to clear PJM Interconnection’s latest annual capacity auction—despite an average 83% surge… Read More Cash-Starved Southern Sells Florida Assets to NextEra NextEra Energy […]

Exelon Corp.’s Three Mile Island, Dresden, and all but a small portion of its Byron nuclear plants failed to clear PJM Interconnection’s latest annual capacity auction—despite an average 83% surge in capacity prices compared to last year. While coal and gas made moderate gains, demand response, energy efficiency, wind, and solar emerged as the auction’s […]

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is poised to approve a revised reliability standard to ensure reliability during geomagnetic disturbances (GMDs). FERC staff on May 17 issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (NOPR) urging its commissioners to approve Reliability Standard TPL-007-2, which the North American Electric Reliability Corp.(NERC)  developed in response to FERC’s September 2016-issued Order […]

Higher-than-average temperatures forecast for much of the U.S. this summer won’t affect reliability in most regions, though concerns remain for Texas and Southern California, according to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Presenting the “Summer 2018 Energy Market and Reliability Assessment,” on May 17,  FERC staff said that most entities that are part of the […]