POWERnews

Louisiana-based engineering firm the Shaw Group on Tuesday said it would sell its 20% stake in nuclear plant company Westinghouse back to partner Toshiba—forcing the Japanese company to raise its holding to 87%. Shaw said it would continue to work as a consortium team member with Westinghouse in the deployment and commercialization of the third-generation AP1000 reactor currently under construction in China and the state of Georgia.

Analysis from research and consulting firm Frost & Sullivan shows that the steam and gas turbines market in Europe—which has seen an all-time low in the past two years—is expected to pick up in the medium-to-long term, even though the sector has been hard-hit by uncertainties concerning carbon trading, power industry legislation, and commodity price surges.

All nuclear plants in the U.S. continued to operate safely, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) said as it announced it had issued mid-cycle assessment letters to the nation’s 104 operating commercial nuclear plants.

The Department of Energy (DOE) on Thursday awarded more than $145 million for 69 projects in 24 states to help shape the next generation of solar energy technologies as part of its SunShot Initiative. That announcement was followed yesterday by one concerning funding for a more established renewable power generation technology. The DOE and Department of the Interior announced nearly $17 million in funding over the next three years for research and development projects to advance hydropower technology.

California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) last week signed into law a bill that extends an expedited permitting process previously limited to large-scale solar projects to wind and geothermal projects planned for installation in California’s Mojave and Colorado Deserts.

Utilities are scrambling to reconnect nearly two million customers in 14 East Coast states who have been without power for three or four consecutive days since Hurricane Irene pummeled the region.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has sent a more proficient inspection team to Dominion’s quake-hit North Anna nuclear power plant in Mineral, Va., to further investigate effects of the Aug. 23 5.8-magnitude quake whose epicenter was only five miles away from the twin-reactor station in Mineral, Va., after Dominion told the NRC that initial reviews determined the ground motion resulting from the quake may have exceeded the plant’s design basis.

On Tuesday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) approved changes to emergency preparedness regulations affecting existing nuclear power plants, those that might be licensed and built in the future, and research and test reactors.

The City of Alexandria, Va., and Houston-based GenOn on Monday agreed to shutter the company’s 482-MW coal-fired Potomac Generating Station (PRGS) by Oct. 2012. Community groups had fiercely opposed the 1949-built plant’s continued operation, citing concerns about its age and emitted pollution, but the plant has been seen as a key facility that maintains reliability for Washington, D.C.

Rural electric cooperative utilities in 14 states will receive up to $900 million in loans from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Rural Development’s Rural Utilities Service to help them upgrade, expand, maintain, and replace power infrastructure in rural areas of the U.S. The funding, announced on Monday, is expected to support construction of nearly 1,500 miles of line and improve 1,700 miles of existing line.

Germany will not rely on reserve power from any of the seven nuclear power plants (with a total capacity of about 8,800 MW) that it shut down in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear crisis for this and the following winter, the country’s energy regulator said today.

The Department of Energy on Friday finalized a partial guarantee for a $852 million loan to support development of the Genesis Solar Project—a 250-MW parabolic trough concentrating solar (CSP) facility located on federal land in Riverside County, Calif., that is expected to increase the nation’s currently installed CSP capacity by about 50%.

Japan’s new Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda could push for use of existing nuclear reactors in Japan for a longer period than advocated by outgoing Prime Minister Naoto Kan.

The Department of the Interior (DOI) last week approved a transmission line on public lands that will connect a 250-MW solar power project to the grid in California. The line will connect to the Imperial Solar Energy Center West Project in Imperial County.

Dominion’s North Anna nuclear plant in Virginia shut down on Tuesday following a loss of offsite power as 10 other nuclear stations in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Michigan reported “unusual events” to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) after a 5.8-magnitude temblor rattled the East Coast.

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) board on Thursday gave the federally owned corporation much-anticipated authorization to complete a nuclear unit at the federally owned corporation’s Bellefonte site near Scottsboro, Ala. However, the TVA may reportedly finance the $4.9 billion completion by selling and leasing its Watts Bar Unit 2 reactor—a project expected to be completed in 2013—as well as its John Sevier combined cycle gas plant.

Regulations proposed by Canada’s Ministry of Environment on Friday could force utilities, starting in July 2015, to shutter new coal-fired plants not outfitted with carbon capture and storage systems and plants reaching the end of "economic” lifespans to shut down—unless the plants’ greenhouse gas (GHG) emission levels could be reduced to those of natural gas combined-cycle plants. The federal government said the new rules could gradually phase out traditional coal units, which would have a significant impact on reducing emissions from the coal-fired generation sector.

Solar Trust of America will convert the first 500-MW phase of its massive concentrating solar power (CSP) project under construction near Blythe, in Riverside County, Calif., to photovoltaic (PV) technology because market conditions currently favor PV, the company announced on Thursday.

The Department of Energy on Friday finalized a $197 million loan guarantee to SoloPower Inc. for the construction and operation of thin-film solar module manufacturing facilities at sites in Portland, Oregon, and at an existing site in San Jose, California.

A recently finalized rule by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on regional and interregional electric transmission planning and cost allocation exceeds its authority under the Federal Power Act and “must be revised,” a coalition of seven utilities have told the commission.

The Department of the Interior and its Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement (BOEMRE) last week invited offshore wind developers to identify locations on the Outer Continental Shelf offshore Rhode Island and Massachusetts for the development of wind projects.

The rolling blackouts that affected nearly 4.4 million electric customers in the Southwest during the bitter cold snap from Feb. 2 to Feb. 4 this year could have been prevented by measures such as winterizing power plants and increasing natural gas storage capacity, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) said after concluding a six-month inquiry into the outages.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT)—the grid operator that manages 85% of Texas’ electric load and which has been grappling with surging power demand as the state battles a long heat wave and devastating drought—on Tuesday said it had asked two generation owners to activate four mothballed units to address critical power shortages.

For the first time in a decade, the Alberta Utilities Commission on Friday gave its final approval for building a coal-fired power plant. Maxim Power received approval to build and operate a new 500-MW coal-fired plant at the existing 150-MW H.R. Milner Generating Station in the Grande Cache area. The company had provided "credible evidence" that air emission issues have been addressed through plant design and other mitigation measures, the commission said.

Four research projects that could further carbon capture technologies—helping them achieve at least 90% carbon dioxide removal with no more than a 35% increase in power costs—were on Monday selected for further development by the Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy.

The Department of Energy (DOE) on Monday finalized a $102 million loan guarantee to a 50.6-MW power plant and an 8-mile transmission line, right on the heels of Department of the Interior (DOI) approval for a massive 550-MW solar photovoltaic (PV) facility in California last week.

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) is reportedly floating legislation that could require Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) background checks for workers at all power plants and critical infrastructure plants with access to restricted areas.

The Tomari 3, a 912-MW pressurized water reactor (PWR) at Hokkaido Electric Power Co.’s Tomari plant in northern Japan’s Hokkaido region, has resumed full commercial operation. It is the first reactor in the country to be restarted after a periodic inspection following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that caused the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

Two new AP1000 reactors proposed for the expansion of Plant Vogtle near Waynesboro, Ga., on Tuesday received a Final Safety Evaluation Report (FSER) from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). In a major milestone for the project—the first two reactors that will be built in the U.S. in 25 years—the federal regulatory agency concluded there are no safety aspects that would preclude it from issuing a limited work authorization and combined construction and operating license (COL) for the project.

Five U.S. grid operators last week jointly urged the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to reconsider strict compliance deadlines proposed for a suite of rules because they feared "accelerated" generation retirements as owners assessed the costs of complying with them. The grid operators also asked the EPA to consider keeping some plants online if they met certain conditions, because taking them out of service would affect system reliability.