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Eaton Helps Build China Field Hospitals in Battle Against Coronavirus

March 14, 2020

The post Eaton Helps Build China Field Hospitals in Battle Against Coronavirus appeared first on POWER Magazine.

Power management company Eaton and its partner electrical contractors and distributors recently completed a construction project to build two new field hospitals in Wuhan, China. The project delivered an additional 2,500 hospital beds to the region, which has been considered ground zero for the COVIT-19 global pandemic.

Eaton’s energy solutions are helping provide electricity to the Huoshenshan and Leishenshan hospitals. The facilities were built in just 10 days.

“When the request for help came in, it was the day before our Spring Festival, China’s most important holiday,” Howard Liu, president of Eaton’s Electrical Sector—Asia-Pacific region, told POWER. “Despite being out on leave as is normal during this time, our team members from logistics and manufacturing, as well as our partner distributors and electrical contractors responded right away. We leveraged all of our available resources across many departments, offices and cities to help deliver the additional hospital beds in the country’s fight against the fast-spreading virus.”…

The POWER Interview: Google, Utilities Partner for Energy Solutions

March 10, 2020

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The post The POWER Interview: Google, Utilities Partner for Energy Solutions appeared first on POWER Magazine.

Businesses are putting more emphasis on sustainability, coordinating their operations to ensure financial success while also being mindful of environmental concerns. Investors in many cases are demanding companies embrace sustainability, which often includes being more efficient in their use of energy.

That’s one reason behind the growth in distributed power generation, as companies develop their own systems—often utilizing renewable power—to have more control over their energy use and its cost. Several of these companies have told their stories, and provided information about their commercial and industrial power installations, at POWER’s Distributed Energy Conference.

This year’s conference is scheduled for Oct. 19-21 in Chicago, Illinois. Sustainability will again be part of the agenda, with businesses discussing how they are developing programs to address financial, social, and environmental concerns.In the corporate world, it is sometimes referred to as the triple bottom line.

Google, the Silicon Valley-based search engine giant, has become a leader in sustainable business practices, purchasing renewable energy to match its global power consumption.…

GE Achieves Battery-Enabled Blackstart of Heavy Duty Gas Turbine

March 8, 2020

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General Electric (GE) has for the first time achieved blackstart of a GE heavy-duty gas turbine using battery energy storage.

The company announced on Feb. 26 it completed black start of a GE 7F.03 gas turbine at a 150-MW simple-cycle unit at Entergy Louisiana’s Perryville Power Station using a 7.4-MW battery-based energy storage system. The unit in Ouachita, Louisiana, began operation in 2001.

GE told POWER on March 5 that the project uses lithium-manganese-cobalt-oxide (or NMC) batteries, and it produces 7.4 MWh (DC) as embedded energy and 6.6 MWh (AC) as usable energy at the point of installation. According to a GE project leader, the battery energy storage system enables blackstart by creating a voltage reference—also known as “grid forming”—to which the turbine and its associated auxiliary power systems can synchronize. These components “then draw the required current to rotate the turbine and begin the start-up process.”…

Georgia Power Orders First Fuel Load for Vogtle Unit 4

March 6, 2020

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The post Georgia Power Orders First Fuel Load for Vogtle Unit 4 appeared first on POWER Magazine.

Georgia Power on March 5 announced it has ordered the first nuclear fuel load for Vogtle Unit 4, as work continues on the first new-design reactors in the U.S. in more than 30 years. Fuel for Unit 3 of the two-unit expansion at Vogtle was ordered last summer.

The completion of the fuel order for Unit 4 is another milestone for the project at the Plant Vogtle site near Waynesboro, Georgia. The project is now approximately 84% complete, according to Georgia Power. The two AP1000 (Advanced Passive) units each have generation capacity of 1,117 MW.

Southern Co., the parent of Georgia Power, in an email to POWER on Thursday said the order consists of 157 fuel assemblies, each 14 feet tall. According to Georgia Power, “The fuel will eventually be loaded into the reactor vessels to support startup once the reactors begin operating.…

Nation’s Largest Community Solar Program Set to Launch

March 4, 2020

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Florida Power & Light (FPL) on March 3 received approval from state regulators to launch the nation’s largest community solar program. FPL’s $ 1.8 billion SolarTogether project will more than double the amount of available community solar power nationwide.

The program, unanimously approved Tuesday by the Florida Public Service Commission (FPSC), adds almost 1.5 GW of solar power generation capacity across the state. It includes 20 solar arrays, each with about 74.5 MW of generation capacity—just below the 75-MW threshold that would require more regulatory oversight of the projects. The new projects are all expected to come online over the next year.

“This program represents significant forward progress for the solar landscape of not only Florida, but the entire United States,” said Eric Silagy, president and CEO of FPL, on Tuesday. “For years, access to solar energy for many Floridians was not economical or easily accessible.…

Long-time GE CEO Jack Welch Dies at 84

March 2, 2020

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Jack Welch, the chief executive of General Electric (GE) during a period of great prosperity for the company, and considered one of America’s most influential CEOs, died March 1 at his home in Salem, Massachusetts. He was 84.

His wife, Suzy Welch, on Monday said the cause of death was renal failure. In a statement released to CNBC, Suzy Welch said, “More than anything else—leader, business icon, management genius—more than those things, although they are all true too—Jack was a life force made of love. And somehow, crazily somehow, he also managed to be the greatest husband and step-father who ever lived, giving our family twenty amazing years of adventure, happiness, and joy. Our hearts, so much larger and fuller having known and loved him, are broken.”

“Today is a sad day for the entire GE family,” GE Chairman and CEO Larry Culp said in a statement.…