POWERnews

A report released last week by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) that broadly assesses the costs and benefits to modernize the U.S. power system suggests that investments needed to deploy a fully functional smart grid range between $338 billion and $476 billion—but could result in benefits of $1.3 trillion to $2 trillion.

In 2010, only 5,116 MW of nameplate wind capacity was added in the U.S.—a nearly 50% drop from the record 10,000 MW installed in 2009, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) said in its newly released annual report. The industry group said, however, that wind power capacity added in 2010 made up 26% of all new generating capacity added in the U.S.—second only to natural gas.

Solar power in the U.S. received multiple boosts in the past week as the Department of Energy (DOE) finalized $2.7 billion in loan guarantees for solar projects in California while making available $170 million in funding for solar photovoltaic (PV) technologies, and GE Energy announced plans for what it said will be the biggest solar PV panel factory in the U.S.

Sunflower Electric Power Corp.’s proposed 895-MW Kansas coal-fired power plant suffered another legal setback last week as a federal district court judge ruled in a lawsuit filed on behalf of environmental group Sierra Club that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) violated federal law by providing approval and financial assistance to the project without environmental review and pubic involvement.

The first Clean Energy Progress Report released today by the International Energy Agency (IEA) finds that while “impressive progress” has been made in developing clean energy technologies in recent years, demand for fossil fuels has continued to surge. Coal has met 47% of global new electricity demand over the past decade, “eclipsing clean energy efforts made over the same period of time,” the agency says.

An internal study released by the Bureau of Reclamation on Thursday found that the federal body overseen by the Department of the Interior (DOI) could generate up to 1 million MWh more power annually from 70 of its existing facilities in 14 states. The report was followed by an $26.6 million funding announcement by the DOE and DOI on Tuesday for research and development projects to advance hydropower technology, including pumped storage.

In a major breakthrough at the crisis-stricken Fukushima Daiichi power plant, engineers who had been desperately struggling to contain radioactivity at the plant’s units today managed to stop highly radioactive water leaking into the Pacific Ocean. Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) says, however, that it will continue to pump contaminated water into the sea for lack of storage capacity, and efforts are under way to begin injection of nitrogen into the primary containment vessel of Daiichi 1.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Thursday proposed a rule—granting a Clean Air Act petition filed by New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP)—to limit sulfur dioxide emissions from a 420-MW coal-fired power plant in Pennsylvania that it alleged was adversely impacting air quality in four New Jersey counties.

Progress Energy Carolinas will shut down its 170-MW W.H. Weatherspoon coal-fired power plant this fall, several years ahead of the originally announced retirement schedule. The decision follows an evaluation of system resource needs.

Dominion Virginia Power on Friday announced it would convert three 63-MW Virginia coal-fired peaking plants to biomass. The Dominion subsidiary said that while the switch would provide a boost to the local economy, it would also reduce nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, mercury, and particulate emissions to “meet stringent new emission standards established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.”