UAE Set to Start First Nuclear Plant; Sweden, Germany Shut Units
The post UAE Set to Start First Nuclear Plant; Sweden, Germany Shut Units appeared first on POWER Magazine.
The first nuclear power plant in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) reportedly will come online in early 2020. The report comes one day after Sweden on Dec. 30 shut down one of four reactors at the nation’s largest nuclear plant, closing Unit 2 at the Ringhals facility after more than 40 years of operation.
Germany also shut down the Philippsburg nuclear plant on Tuesday, part of that country’s planned phase-out of nuclear power by year-end 2022. The plant’s operating license was set to expire at midnight Central European Time on Tuesday.
The Al-Ittihad newspaper on Dec. 31 said one unit of the $ 24.4 billion Barakah plant in the UAE will enter commercial operation in the first quarter of 2020, and testing on a second reactor is set to begin soon, according to information from the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corp. (ENEC). The ENEC has said it is nearing issuance of an operating license for the first reactor.…
Mixed Reactions to FERC’s Recent MOPR Order from Power Generators
The post Mixed Reactions to FERC’s Recent MOPR Order from Power Generators appeared first on POWER Magazine.
On Dec. 19, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) directed PJM Interconnection to dramatically expand its Minimum Offer Price Rule (MOPR) to nearly all state-subsidized capacity resources. It’s the latest of a series of dramatic revisions to the grid operator’s rule, which essentially functions to provide a minimum offer screening process to bar new market entrants from artificially depressing capacity auction clearing prices.
See why the recent order is significant here, “The Significance of FERC’s Recent PJM MOPR Order Explained.” |
The barrage of news reports about the order that followed its release focused heavily on the divided vote, noting it fell along the commissioners’ political affiliations: Chairman Neil Chatterjee and Bernard McNamee are Republicans, and Richard Glick is a Democrat. As Cheryl LaFleur, a commissioner who left FERC in August, told POWER, FERC—an independent regulatory government agency that is officially organized as part of the Department of Energy—has increasingly been mired in partisanship and politicization.…