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BP Details Plan for UK’s Largest Hydrogen Project

March 23, 2021

The post BP Details Plan for UK’s Largest Hydrogen Project appeared first on POWER Magazine.

The global market for hydrogen development has taken another step forward, as oil and gas major BP announced it is studying development of what it said would be the UK’s largest blue hydrogen production facility.

BP on March 18 said the project, which would be sited on England’s northeast coast, is part of a plan to make the region a hydrogen production hub. The company initially is looking at a project that could grow to 1 GW of production capacity by 2030, at a plant that could produce about 260,000 metric tons of hydrogen annually when fully operational.

The announcement came one day after the UK government announced $ 238 million in funding for nine projects in five industrial areas. The projects would be part of the country’s decarbonization strategy, and would be focused on blue hydrogen and carbon capture and storage (CCS).

BP’s plan comes on the heels of Enegix Energy’s March 1 announcement that it plans to build what the company said would be the world’s largest green hydrogen plant, a facility in northeast Brazil that could produce more than 600 million kilograms, or about 1.32 billion pounds, of the fuel per year.…

Southern Announces Delay in Testing at Vogtle

March 21, 2021

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Southern Co. has announced another delay in hot functional testing for the first unit of its two-unit expansion at the Vogtle nuclear plant in Georgia.

The utility in a March 19 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said its subsidiary Georgia Power “now expects the start of hot functional testing for Unit 3 will be delayed into April.” The filing said that Southern Nuclear, the nuclear power subsidiary of Southern Co., “continues to target a November 2021 in-service date for Unit 3,” though it also said “the schedule is challenged and… a delay is likely and could add one month or more to the Unit 3 in-service date.”

Georgia Power said it estimates delays beyond November “would result in additional base capital costs for Georgia Power of approximately $ 25 million per month.” The project, first approved by state regulators in 2009, with an original estimated cost of about $ 14 billion, now projects to enter commercial operation about five years after initial expectations.…

Is It Safe to Invest in Mexican Energy Projects?

March 19, 2021

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In late 2013, Mexico embarked on a path to transform its energy markets. Then-President Enrique Peña-Nieto oversaw constitutional reforms that ended state-run monopolies, and opened Mexico’s power market to competition and investment from foreign and private companies.

By most accounts, the policies were highly effective in spurring investments in renewable energy and efficient natural gas-fired power projects. A great deal of money has been funneled into Mexico by investors from as many as 45 countries since the law was enacted.

“The result of that was dramatically successful. I mean, you have millions and millions of dollars that were sunk into the power sector bringing in modern equipment, environmentally friendly, because there were a lot of renewable projects that went online. You see how the percentage of renewables changed in the last 10 years—you can see that it has been successful,” Roberto Aguirre Luzi, a partner with King & Spalding, said as a guest on The POWER Podcast.…

Solar Industry Adds Record Capacity in 2020 in Spite of Pandemic

March 16, 2021

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The U.S. solar industry installed a record 19.2 GWdc of photovoltaic (PV) capacity in 2020, a 43% increase from 2019, according to a report released by the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and Wood Mackenzie. The numbers are particularly impressive considering the world was dealing with unique challenges as a result of COVID-19.

“After a slowdown in Q2 due to the pandemic, the solar industry innovated and came roaring back to continue our trajectory as America’s leading source of new energy,” said SEIA President and CEO Abigail Ross Hopper. “The forecast shows that by 2030, the equivalent of one in eight American homes will have solar, but we still have a long way to go if we want to reach our goals in the Solar+ Decade.”

Solar accounted for 43% of all electricity-generating capacity added in the U.S. in 2020 (Figure 1), representing solar power’s largest-ever share of new generating capacity and ranking first among all technologies for the second year in a row.…

Are 1-in-10-Year Events Really 1-in-10-Year Events Anymore?

March 14, 2021

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The post Are 1-in-10-Year Events Really 1-in-10-Year Events Anymore? appeared first on POWER Magazine.

When evaluating resource adequacy requirements, many power companies and grid operators have used a methodology that originated more than 70 years ago. This probabilistic reliability approach has generally performed adequately through the years. It has generally evaluated loss-of-load events occurring at frequencies of one-day-in-10-years (1-in-10) to be acceptable in terms of system reliability.

However, it’s not without risk, as incidents in Texas, California, and other parts of the country and world have demonstrated in recent history. In light of these events, it’s worth asking: have risks changed? It could be that the method used to evaluate what constitutes a 1-in-10 event is no longer sound.

“When you have 1-in-a-5 or 1-in-a-10-year event that’s happening every year, most likely those are not 1-in-a-10 or 1-in-100-year events,” Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) CEO Arshad Mansoor said as a guest on The POWER Podcast.

“Really, what we need to go is beyond that.…

Texas PUC Outlines Review of Response to Power Disaster

March 12, 2021

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The regulatory group that oversees Texas’ deregulated power market has identified eight areas the agency will focus on as it continues to study the state’s response to a mid-February storm that left millions of electricity customers without power for several days.

The Public Utility Commission (PUC) of Texas on March 12, as part of an open meeting, listed items including weatherization of generation equipment, and also a study on how to improve the state’s power market, as part of its ongoing research into the causes and effects of the extreme winter weather on Texas’ power transmission and distribution system.

“I am proud of the work PUC staff is doing to shed light on the issues that combined to interrupt power for millions of Texans—we must make sure it never happens again,” said Arthur D’Andrea, the PUC chair who was appointed to the post after former PUC head DeAnn Walker resigned March 1, one of several resignations or firings—including the head of the Electricity Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the state’s grid operator—of officials in the wake of the February power outages.…