POWERnews

India’s Atomic Energy Commission and its state-owned Nuclear Power Corp. of India Limited (NPCIL) on Monday signed major agreements with France’s AREVA for the construction of two EPR reactors—the first of a series of 6—at Jaitapur in the western state of Maharashtra.

Dominion Virginia Power last week struck a deal with the National Park Service and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality to close a 74-MW West Virginia coal-fired plant as part of plans to build a new 1,300-MW natural gas–fired power station in northwestern Virginia.

Economic and environmental developments markedly affected electricity markets in 2009, driving generation down 4.1% to 3,950 million MWh from 4,119 million MWh in 2008—the lowest level since 2003 and the largest decline in six decades, the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA) said in its recently released “Electric Power Annual” report.

The Illinois House on Tuesday approved plans to build Tenaska’s $3.5 billion proposed integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) plant with carbon capture and storage (CCS) in Taylorville, Ill. The state Senate is expected to vote on the 602-MW plant later today.

In a long-term energy plan released last week, Ontario’s government reiterated its commitment to phase out coal power in the province by 2014 while increasing nuclear capacity.

India’s Union Ministry of Environments and Forests on Tuesday granted environmental clearance to a 9,900-MW nuclear power plant proposed for construction by state-owned Nuclear Power Corp. of India Ltd. (NPCIL) in collaboration with French firm AREVA.

A 1,650-MW EPR reactor under construction in Finland will begin operation during the latter half of 2013, AREVA said in a press release last week, denying rumors that the project had been delayed again.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s proposal to extend the operational lifespan of the country’s 17 nuclear reactors by an average of 12 years was passed in Germany’s Bundesrat, the upper house of parliament, on Friday.

FirstEnergy Corp. today announced it would permanently shut down units 4 and 5 at its R.E. Burger Plant in Shadyside, Ohio, by Dec. 31, abandoning plans to repower the coal units with biomass. The Akron-based company cited a significant plunge in market prices of electricity, saying that they “no longer support a repowered Burger Plant.”

The UK’s Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) on Thursday approved a 900-MW combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) power station in Spalding, Lincolnshire, in an effort to boost the nation’s energy security. The consent was given on the condition that the plant reserves enough space to allow for a future retrofit of carbon capture technology.