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India’s Coal Future Hinges on Advanced Ultrasupercritical Breakthroughs

June 7, 2019

India is striving to conserve coal and slash its carbon emissions. The country which depended on coal for 56% of its total capacity of 356 GW as of May 2019, wants to reduce coal’s share to 45% of a planned capacity expansion to 480 GW by the end of 2022. During that period, it will also work to increase its share of renewables from the current 22% to 37%.

Leading the expansion is one of India’s largest power companies, NTPC. Formerly known as National Thermal Power Corp., the 70% state-owned company in 2010 became a “maharatna” company—a special designation that means it has greater autonomy from the central government in decision-making. Furthermore, the designation allows NTPC to incur unlimited capital expenditures, enter into joint ventures or strategic alliances, and restructure or raise debt from capital markets. It also has allowed the company, which currently has a fleet of 53 GW, to diversify, and by 2032, NTPC aims to make non-fossil-fuel-based generation capacity 30% of its portfolio.…

POWER Notebook: GE Plant in France, Targeted for Job Cuts, Will Not Close

June 5, 2019

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The head of GE’s operations in France told a Paris newspaper that a French factory targeted for more than 1,000 job cuts will not close. GE last week said it wanted to make its operations in France more efficient and said changes would come at the Belfort plant in eastern France, which handles technology for GE Power’s hydro, gas, steam, and nuclear technology.

Bruno Le Maire, France’s economy minister, had said he would try to save jobs at the plant after GE’s announcement on May 28. Job cuts were expected to be negotiated with the plant’s labor unions. GE had said it could cut up to 1,044 jobs at Belfort, where it employs about 4,300 workers, including 1,900 in the gas power unit. GE had said 792 job cuts could come from that unit, with other positions eliminated in support divisions.

Hugh Bailey, general manager of GE in France, in an interview published June 2 in the Paris-based Le Journal du Dimanche, was quoted as saying, “I want to be clear, Belfort will not close.…

MHPS, Magnum Will Build 1-GW Renewable Energy Storage Facility in Utah

June 3, 2019

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Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems (MHPS) and Magnum Development, the owner of a large and geographically rare underground salt dome in Utah, have teamed to develop a massive project that could store up 1,000 MW of renewable energy year-round and provide it to variability-challenged Western power markets.

The companies this week signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to develop the $ 1 billion Advanced Clean Energy Storage (ACES) project in Millard, in central Utah, MHPS CEO Paul Browning told POWER on May 30. The project has the backing of Utah Gov. Gary Herbert (R), who lauded the project for its potential to “put Utah on the map as the epicenter of utility-scale storage for the Western U.S.”

A Rare Opportunity

ACES will comprise a series of facilities above and within the Magnum Salt Dome, a geologic formation that was tectonically developed from a bedded salt deposit, and which seismic mapping suggests measures at least one mile thick and about three miles wide.…

The POWER Interview: GE Unleashing a Hydrogen Gas Power Future

June 1, 2019

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Since the 1940s, when General Electric (GE), launched its gas turbine operations, the company has pioneered and commercialized a lengthy list of gas turbine technologies, large and small. As the decarbonization movement gains pace and more renewables flood the landscape, the company’s gas turbines have taken on new crucial roles to provide dispatchability and flexibility.

But as questions about the long-term use of natural gas—a fossil fuel—in a carbon-free energy ecosystem emerge, the company is building on years of experience exploring how GE gas turbine technology could run on hydrogen fuels, as Dr. Jeffrey Goldmeer, director of Gas Turbine Combustion & Fuels Solutions for GE Power—and GE’s topmost hydrogen expert—told POWER in an interview this month.

Dr. Jeffrey Goldmeer is the director of Gas Turbine Combustion & Fuels Solutions for GE Power.

POWER: How did you become involved in hydrogen?

Goldmeer: I’ve been in my current role as the fuel-flex leader for the gas turbine business for 12 years. I came to GE Power out of GE Global Research Center, where I worked in combustion for six years, and for the last three years at the R&D center, I actually managed the combustion team there.…

Illinois Passes Landmark Coal Ash Legislation

May 30, 2019

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Illinois on May 27 became the third state in the nation to pass legislation requiring coal ash protections beyond federal requirements.

The state’s House passed the Coal Ash Pollution Prevention Act (SB 9) in a 77-36 vote on Monday, only weeks after Senate passage of the bill in a 39-9 vote on May 9. The bill, sponsored by State Sen. Scott Bennett (D-Champaign) and State Rep. Carol Ammons (D-Champaign), now proceeds to Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s (D) desk, where it will likely be signed into law.

SB 9, which environmental groups lauded as a “groundbreaking bill,” amends the Illinois Environmental Protection Act by acknowledging that “[Coal combustion residuals (CCR)] generated by the electric generating industry has caused groundwater contamination and other forms of pollution at active and inactive plants throughout this [s]tate.”

Though it outlines some exceptions, the bill essentially prohibits the discharge, directly or indirectly, of any contaminants from a CCR surface impoundment into the environment. Under the bill, generators also cannot construct, install, modify, operator, or shutter any CCR surface impoundments without a permit from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (ILEPA).…

[UPDATED] EPA Sets Schedules for Long List of Power Plant Regulatory Actions

May 26, 2019

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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will act on a spate of power plant rules over the next year, its newly released agenda of regulatory and deregulatory actions shows.

The May 23-released “Spring 2019 Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions” lists 35 new actions, along with 57 actions that it considers “deregulatory.” The list includes new rules governing coal ash, new insights and timelines for final effluent limitations guidelines and mercury rules, action on “boiler MACT” rules, monitoring and record-keeping clarifications for the mercury and other rules, changes to New Source Review permitting, and an amendment to a rule governing stationary combustion turbines at power plants.

Rule	First time on agenda	Proposed rule	Final rule
Effluent Limitations Guidelines (ELG) and Standards		June 2019	August 2020
Rules Governing Definition of “Waters of the U.S.”		July 2017 (supplemental in July 2018)/February 2019	August 2019/December 2019
Coal ash: Amendments to the National Minimum Criteria (Phase 2)		July 2019	December 2019
Coal ash: Federal Coal Combustion Residuals Permitting Program	Yes	July 2019	May 2020
Coal ash: Revision of cease receipt of waste deadline for CCR surface impoundments; response to court	Yes	July 2019	December 2019
Coal ash: Alternative demonstration for unlined surface impoundments/ request for comment on legacy units; response to court	Yes	July 2019	December 2019
MATS: Reconsideration of Supplemental Cost Finding and Residual Risk and Technology Review		February 2019	November 2019
MATS technical corrections, reporting revisions, clarifications		November 2019
NESHAP:Stationary Combustion Turbine Residual Risk and Technology Review		April 2019 (comment period ends on May 28)	January 2020
(Boiler MACT):NESHAP: Industrial, Commercial, and Institutional Boilers and Process Heaters Amendments		September 2019
Review of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for Particulate Matter		March 2020
Project emissions accounting under PSD and non attainment NSR		July 2019
Standards of Performance for Stationary Compression Ignition (CI) Internal Combustion Engines Amendments		June 2019	Direct final rule, June 2019
Technical Revisions to the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Rule		December 2019	December 2020
Clean Air Act Benefit-Cost Reforms	Yes	December 2019
Revisions to the Petition Provisions of the Title V Permitting Program		August 2016	August 2019
Financial responsibility requirements for power sector		July 2019	December 2020
Accidental release prevention requirements		May 2018	August 2019
General revisions to emissions monitoring and reporting requirements for fossil generators		November 2019	April 2020

The agenda shows “continued progress in reducing regulatory burden” envisioned by President Trump’s proposed regulatory reforms, the agency said in a statement.…