POWERnews

Changes to a state bill that would have allowed AmerenUE to charge customers during the construction of a second nuclear plant at Callaway in Missouri last week prompted the company to pull the plug on the $6 billion project.

Executives of North American utility companies are nearly split on whether President Obama’s proposed energy initiatives will have a significant impact on the structure of the electricity sector, according to the third annual Platts/Capgemini Utilities Executive Study just released. But there is greater executive agreement that environmental regulation and electricity prices for end users will be increasing.

Spurred by New York’s target to meet 45% of its electricity needs through renewable resources by 2015, the New York Power Authority (NYPA) last week issued a call for proposals to develop offshore wind projects of up to 120 MW in New York State waters of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario.

After a thorough scientific review ordered in 2007 by the U.S. Supreme Court, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a proposed finding on Friday that greenhouse gases contribute to air pollution that may endanger public health or welfare.

The New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) on Tuesday approved the $4.5 billion acquisition of nearly half of Constellation Nuclear, the indirect owner of three nuclear power plants in upstate New York, to a wholly owned subsidiary of Électricité de France S.A. (EDF), the world’s largest nuclear power plant owner.

After 14 hearings and 15,000 comments, the Department of Energy has decided to pull the plug on any domestic involvement in the three-year-old Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), which the U.S. initiated to focus on reprocessing spent commercial nuclear fuel.

On Thursday, while visiting Jefferson City, Mo., with Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, Vice President Joe Biden announced that, as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, more than $3.3 billion in smart grid technology development grants and an additional $615 million for smart grid storage, monitoring, and technology viability were being made available.

On tax day, Dominion and BP Wind Energy announced full commercial operation of Phase I of the Fowler Ridge Wind Farm in Benton County, Ind. Of the 400-MW facility, BP and Dominion are partners on approximately 300 MW. The two companies could expand the facility to a total of 750 MW in the future.

In recognition that downed power lines can cause catastrophic wildfires when winds and temperatures are high, San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) has proposed to shut off power to a mountainous backcountry area in northeastern San Diego County when conditions warrant the emergency measure. If the proposal is approved by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), it would be the first such attempt to prevent fires by shutting off power to an at-risk area.

Officials of Tri-State Generation and Transmission still don’t know what caused symptoms that sent a total of 19 contract workers to the hospital on Friday night. Those affected were among 600 workers who are engaged in a six-week outage to upgrade boiler, turbine-generator, and scrubber systems of northwest Colorado’s Craig Station Unit 3.