Industry News | EnergyNorthwest.com

PSEG Will Retire Two New Jersey Coal Power Plants

October 11, 2016

Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG) will close the 620-MW Hudson Generation Station in Jersey City, N.J., and the 632-MW Mercer Generation Station in Hamilton Township, N.J., on June 1, 2017.

“The sustained low prices of natural gas have put economic pressure on these plants for some time. In that context, we could not justify the significant investment required to upgrade these plants to meet the new reliability standards,” Bill Levis, president and COO of PSEG Power, said in a statement released on October 5. “The plants have been infrequently called on to run and neither plant cleared the last two PJM capacity auctions. The plants’ capacity payments have been critical to their profitability and PSEG’s ability to continue to invest in modernizing them.”

PSEG said it is committed to working with union representatives to limit the impact of the closures on the 200 affected employees, roughly split between the two facilities.

“These plants have played a critical role in powering the growth and economic expansion of New Jersey and PSEG is grateful to our employees who have played a part in building and running them for the past 50 years,” said Levis.…

Delayed Again, Kemper County IGCC Plant to Start Operations in a Month

October 6, 2016

| No Comments

| Industry News

Mississippi Power’s integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power plant under construction in Kemper County, Miss., will likely be placed in service by November 30, a month later than anticipated. The delay will be costly.

Mississippi Power reached a new milestone on September 16, announcing that it had started producing syngas using the second gasifier—gasifier “A”—at the facility. Initial production of syngas at gasifier “B” began on July 14, demonstrating the viability of transport integrated gasification technology, which is being used for the first time at commercial scale, Southern Co. said in a statement.

In late August, however, gasifier B was taken offline for inspection, the company said in an October 3 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

“The removal of ash and ash deposits prior to the inspection of gasifier ‘B’ required more time than initially expected. Additional time has been added to the schedule to allow for the restart of gasifier ‘B’ and for both gasifier trains to achieve the sustained capacity levels necessary for the initial operations and testing of the syngas clean-up systems and the production of electricity using syngas,” it said.…

Watts Bar Unit 2 Nuclear Plant Completes Power Ascension Testing

October 4, 2016

| No Comments

| Industry News

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) has reached another milestone in its effort to bring Watts Bar Unit 2 into commercial operation: The unit completed its final power ascension test—a 50% load rejection from full power—and safely returned to full power on September 30.

The testing had been halted on August 30 due to a switchyard transformer fire. Although the fire did not affect Unit 2’s systems, which responded to the event as designed, the affected transformer had to be replaced before testing could resume. The TVA said a rigorous and detailed inspection, repair, and testing process was performed before the transformer was returned to service on September 26.

Power ascension testing included more than 40 required tests at various power levels up to 100% output, with pauses at 30%, 50%, and 75% (Figure 1). The gradual increase in power provided data, which was used to verify that the unit was operating as designed.

1. Watts Bar Unit 2 power ascension testing plan.

…

THE BIG PICTURE: Still in the Dark

October 2, 2016

| No Comments

| Industry News

The post THE BIG PICTURE: Still in the Dark appeared first on POWER Magazine.

POWER Magazine…

New York City Sets Ambitious Citywide Energy Storage Target

September 30, 2016

| No Comments

| Industry News

New York City is aiming to have 100 MWh of energy storage by 2020 under an unprecedented target set by Mayor Bill de Blasio on September 23.

The city’s first-ever energy storage deployment target will help reduce reliance on the grid by making variable sources of energy production, such as solar panels, usable for more of the day, Blasio said as he announced the target to celebrate Climate Week. “Energy storage also helps increase the City’s resiliency by providing backup energy when the grid is offline.”

The mayor on September 23 also called on the Department of Buildings to issue permits for more than 3,000 solar panel installations this year alone, bringing the citywide total to more than 8,000 installations in 2016.

“This solar growth puts the City on track to meet its OneNYC goals of installing 100 [MW] of solar power on public buildings and spurring the installation of 250 MW on private buildings by 2025,” his office said in a statement last week.…

Japan Kills Monju but Not Breeders

September 26, 2016

| No Comments

| Industry News

In a widely expected move, the Japanese government finally killed the ill-fated Monju breeder reactor project on September 21, but reasserted its faith in breeder reactor technology as a component of the nation’s future power mix.

The Monju plant was an ambitious project that never came close to meeting its backers’ expectations. Launched in 1980, the sodium-cooled fast-breeder plant managed only 250 days of operation over its lifetime. A sodium coolant fire in 1995 and subsequent cover-up by operator Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) gave the plant a black eye from which it never recovered. An abortive attempt at a restart in 2010 led to revelations that JAEA had skipped required safety inspections on as many as 10,000 of the plant’s components.

In a scathing indictment last year, Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority ruled that JAEA was not qualified to safely operate the plant and ordered the federal government to find a replacement or shut the facility down. The Japanese cabinet on Wednesday took the latter option, drawing to a close a project that burned through an estimated ¥1 trillion ($ 10 billion in 2016 dollars) with little to show for it.…