POWERnews

To counter generator-announced plans to retire nearly 14,000 MW of generation between May 2012 and the end of 2015 and boost reliability, the PJM Interconnection Board last week approved nearly $2 billion in transmission upgrades.

An explosion on Sunday night at a coal bunker at DTE Energy’s St. Clair Power Plant in Michigan left one worker with a minor injury and caused minor damage to the plant. The cause of the explosion is under investigation.

Investigations are ongoing into a fire that occurred just after midnight on Thursday at the 840-MW Mettur thermal power plant in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The fire that devastated the plant’s conveyor system killed one worker and injured two others.

An investigation into the failure of one of North Anna nuclear plant’s four emergency diesel generators following last summer’s earthquake has alleged that plant personnel did not establish and maintain appropriate maintenance procedures for the plant’s generators. Dominion’s plant near Richmond, Va., faces increased regulatory oversight as a result, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) said on Monday.

On Monday, Convert Italia and solar module maker Solaria Corp. announced they had begun operating in Puglia, Italy, what they called the largest low-concentrating solar PV power plant in the world.

The State Grid Corp. of China has begun construction of an 800-kV ultra-high-voltage direct current (UHVDC) transmission line that will run 2,210 kilometers (1,373 miles) from Hami Prefecture in China’s western province of Xinjiang to the north-central industrial city of Zhengzhou. When completed in 2014, the $3.7 billion line will have a transmission capacity of 8 GW.

Enriched uranium fuel supplier USEC on Tuesday struck a deal with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA, a federal agency), the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA, a federally owned corporation), and Energy Northwest (a municipal corporation of Washington State) to extend uranium operations at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Paducah, Ky., for at least another year.

A proposal launched on Tuesday by Senators Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) could bar Chinese-made solar panels from qualifying for the existing 30% tax credit that U.S. individuals and businesses receive for purchasing and installing solar panels.

A Texas District Court judge on Monday signaled his intent to reverse and remand to the state a key air permit granted to the proposed $3.2 billion Las Brisas Energy Center (LBEC).

Japan’s trade minister last week approved a ¥1 trillion ($12.5 billion) capital injection to avert the collapse of the Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO). The move is effectively a nationalization of Japan’s largest utility and owner of the crisis-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.