Two more units at a natural gas-fired combined cycle power plant in Iran are producing electricity for the country’s national grid. The Mahtab Kavir plant in Zarand County in Kerman Province now has total power generation capacity of 484 MW after the two new 162-MW units were synchronized with the grid on Feb. 9. The plant is supporting the electricity supply for three provinces—Kerman, Hormozgan, […]
Centrus Competes Construction, Initial Testing of HALEU Demonstration Cascade
Marking a major milestone, Centrus Energy—a firm under contract with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to demonstrate production of high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) with domestic technology—on Feb. 9 said it completed construction and initial testing of its advanced uranium enrichment centrifuge cascade as well as most of its associated support systems. Once the company completes the remaining works related to support systems at its […]
Kenya Gearing Up to Build 35-MW Geothermal Power Plant at Menengai Steam Field
Kenya is readying to kick off construction of the 35-MW Menengai geothermal power project in Nakuru County as part of the first phase of the wider Menengai complex, the country’s second large-scale geothermal field developed after Olkaria. The project is being developed by Globeleq, an Africa-focused independent power producer and project developer that is 70% owned by British International Investment and 30% by Norfund. Globeleq […]
DOE, NREL, EPRI Announce Program to Support Grid Integration of DERs
The U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE) has announced a new competition designed to support the integration of distributed energy resources (DERs) into the nation’s power grid. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm unveiled the program Feb. 7 during a presentation to attendees of the DISTRIBUTECH 2023 event at the San Diego Convention Center in California. The program will be administered by the Golden, Colorado-based National Renewable Energy […]
Cutting Costs with Technology-Driven Improvements
If you’ve been in the power industry workforce for any significant length of time, you may have asked your supervisor at some point “Why am I doing this?” regarding a task that you were assigned, only to have them respond, “We’ve always done it this way.” That’s because the power industry has a reputation for being stuck in its ways of doing things. As long […]
Pakistan Inaugurates Third Reactor at Karachi Nuclear Plant
The third unit of the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant (KANUPP) in Pakistan was inaugurated by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Feb. 2, adding another 1.1 GW of power generation capacity to the country’s national grid. Pakistan, like other countries, is battling an ongoing energy crisis with a lack of generation capacity to meet current electricity demand. The China-designed Hualong One reactor is the second […]
First LNG-Fired CCGT Unit Begins Operation at JERA’s Giant Modernized Gas Plant in Japan
Japanese power generator JERA has launched commercial operation of the first of three liquefied natural gas (LNG)–fueled 650-MW combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) units that will modernize the Anegasaki Thermal Power Station, a mammoth 3.2-GW, six-unit gas and oil power plant in Chiba Prefecture. The new Anegasaki Thermal Power Station Unit 1, opened on Feb. 1, replaces a 1967-built 600-MW gas steam unit that consumed heavy […]
Major Nuclear Players Team on Innovative Construction Delivery Approach for BWRX-300 SMR at Darlington
Ontario Power Generation (OPG), GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH), SNC-Lavalin, and Aecon have signed a trailblazing six-year alliance agreement designed to bolster the deployment of a BWRX-300 small modular reactor (SMR) at the Darlington New Nuclear Project (DNNP) in Clarington, Ontario. The contract unveiled on Jan. 27—a year after OPG selected GEH’s BWRX-300 for the DNNP amid stiff competition for the pioneering SMR project—is the […]
New Rules, Incentives Shaping Solar-Plus-Storage Market
An evolving regulatory environment, expanded tax credits, and moves for more reliability and resilience in the power space are impacting the growth of solar-plus-storage installations. Several state utility commissions in recent years have reduced the export rate for net energy metering (NEM), meaning consumers utilizing solar power are seeing less value for the solar energy they would return to the power grid. These measures, such […]
Why Constellation Energy, a Nuclear-Heavy Giant, Is Primed for Power Futurity
Spun out of Exelon Corp. a year ago, Constellation Energy’s competitive generation and customer-facing energy businesses represent a new power company paradigm that conforms to decarbonization. But the company that today holds the largest nuclear fleet in the U.S. will still face a unique array of challenges. In 1882, soon after inventor and researcher Thomas Edison developed the practical lightbulb, several prominent Chicagoans banded together […]