lausward

There are increasing schemes in Europe to use marginally profitable gas-fired power plants to also generate heat for cities, and for good reason. Lausward Power Plant’s Fortuna Unit—POWER’s 2016 Plant of

I’ve developed something of a love/hate relationship with awards. Initially, it’s exciting to spot outstanding or unusual projects for our POWER awards, but over time, any number of things can happen to those plants, making them appear less than stellar. Sometimes it’s changing policy or market conditions that make a record-setting plant completely uneconomic (see […]

Düsseldorf’s new “Block Fortuna” at the Lausward Power Plant, owned by municipal utility Stadtwerke Düsseldorf, is setting records and giving Germany’s coal-fired power plants some much-needed competition for backing up the nation’s large percentage of variable renewable power. Germany’s Energiewende (literally, “energy turn”) functions as something of a living laboratory, where innovation equals survival, because […]