Top Plant

Owner/operator: We Energies Converting a boiler’s fuel source from coal to natural gas involves a lot of planning and reengineering. When the plant is the sole steam service supplier to a downtown metropolitan area, it also involves a rigid schedule. The Valley Power Plant overcame several challenges to successfully complete one such conversion. The Valley […]

Owner/operator: Louisville Gas and Electric Co. and Kentucky Utilities Kentucky has always been coal country, but times are changing, and its generation fleet is changing with them. Facing the prospect of costly emissions control upgrades at the 60-year-old Cane Run Generating Station, Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities opted to retire the aging facility […]

Owner/operator: A2A When a plant goes into mothballs—especially because of poor economics—it’s often a harbinger of impending retirement. Upgrades to improve performance may help, but in changing markets, returns can be highly uncertain. Italian energy firm A2A partnered with GE to return one plant to profitability with a combination of hardware improvements and cloud-based analytics. […]

To alleviate chronic power shortages, the first gas turbine unit at this fast-tracked 640-MW plant was synchronized to the grid within a record-breaking 159 days—two days ahead of schedule. The revolution in

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 […]

Begun with grand ambitions in the early 1980s, the second unit at Argentina’s Atucha site ran smack into the country’s economic crises in the following decade. But a determined crew brought the project to completion after a 13-year hiatus through a focus on rebuilding the nation’s nuclear labor force. As with many other nations in […]

The nearly 4-GW, three-unit Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station remains the largest generator of electricity in the U.S. for the 23rd consecutive year, producing more than 30 million MWh in 2014, for the 10th time (the only plant in the U.S. to do so), all while using only treated wastewater for cooling. Palo Verde Nuclear […]

Alliant Energy and its co-owners are investing $900 million to modernize the Columbia Energy Center with a new suite of air quality control equipment and plant improvements that will increase its output and efficiency while reducing emissions. The plant makeover ensures its continued operation for decades to come. In 2009, Wisconsin Power and Light Co., […]

Owner/operator: NTPC Ltd. One of NTPC’s first coal-fired facilities, the 2.6-GW Ramagundam plant, is aging well, delivering noteworthy performance metrics that distinguish it from other plants in the state-owned generator’s big coal fleet. For nearly four decades, the 2.6-GW Ramagundam Super Thermal Power Station’s vermillion-banded stacks have towered over the green teak forests of what […]

Owner/operator: Shenergy Company Ltd. In a nation seeing breakneck growth in its power sector and a drive toward cleaner, more efficient generation, coal remains the backbone. That means hard work is ahead for China in power sector innovation, and a plant in Shanghai is leading the way. There is no country on earth that has […]