Germany

Efficiency has become the mantra of modern coal power. The 912-MW hard coal–fired RDK 8, a unit that operates in Germany’s challenging power market, achieved a 47.5% net thermal efficiency through

Siemens on June 18 said it would cut 2,700 jobs from its Gas and Power division, on top of 10,400 positions the German engineering firm last month said it would jettison as part of cost-cutting measures. The Siemens’ announcement comes one day after U.S.-based rival GE said it would cut 450 jobs at two of […]

Swedish power company Vattenfall is testing a technology that stores energy in salt, with a goal of proving whether the process would be useful for storage of renewable energy such as from wind and solar

A German power plant experienced premature wear and excessive seal corrosion in its boiler feed circuit and flue gas desulfurization slurry pumps. By upgrading the performance of the pump seals and

The Arkona offshore wind power plant was officially opened April 16 by owners E.ON and Equinor in the German Baltic Sea. Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy (SGRE) carried out construction works including the installation and commissioning of 60 SWT-6.0-154 direct drive offshore wind turbines in a record time of only five months between Juni and October […]

A widespread misconception persists that nuclear plants can only function as inflexible baseload sources of power—and it’s hurting prospects for the nuclear sector’s role in the world’s future power

A German business magazine reports that Siemens is exploring options for its struggling gas turbine business, and could look to form a joint venture with Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI). Manager Magazin on March 21 said Siemens “wants to accommodate the large turbine business of the Japanese Mitsubishi Group and in the future hold only a […]

Eight years after Germany decided it would halt nuclear power production by 2022, the country that relied on lignite and hard coal for 38% of its generated power in 2018 will phase out coal by 2038 or earlier

The Gustav Knepper power plant in Dortmund-Mengede, Germany, was leveled by two controlled explosions on February 17. The facility had been closed for five years. The plant’s boiler house was brought down first. A 210-meter chimney and 128-meter cooling tower were leveled in a second blast, about 45 minutes after the first. The German YouTube […]

In 2017, the 10 largest power companies, ranked by their installed generation capacity, owned 18% of total global installed capacity, while the next-largest 15 owned around 10%—meaning that the top 25 companies own nearly 30% of global installed power generation capacity, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Chinese companies account for more than one-eighth of global installed […]