Collaboration | EnergyNorthwest.com

Collaboration Brings the Energy for Pennsylvania Community

October 1, 2021

It took a team effort, led by Kiewit as the engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contractor, to overcome numerous challenges and build a 1,000-MW natural gas-fired facility that has sparked a regional renaissance.

A power plant often provides a region with more than just electricity. A large generation facility can also be an economic engine for an entire community.

The Hickory Run Energy Center (Figure 1, and above), a 1,000-MW natural gas-fired combined cycle power plant, has proven to be just that for Lawrence County in Pennsylvania. Tyr Energy LLC is the asset manager for the plant, located in New Castle in North Beaver Township, about 45 miles northwest of Pittsburgh. The facility has been a driving force behind more than $ 1 billion in capital investment projects in the county over the past few years, providing even more of a boost to the local economy after coming online in May 2020.

Hickory Run is contributing to a rebound in manufacturing in the New Castle area, a region with a rich industrial history, starting with iron and brick works in the mid-1800s and continuing for many years as a hub for iron and steel.…

The POWER Interview: A Marketplace for Energy Collaboration

May 26, 2021

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The digitization of power generation is among the technology advancements transforming the way electricity is produced and distributed. Utilities have always sought ways to improve the efficiency of their operations, along with lowering the cost of maintenance while streamlining asset management.

The digital transformation has brought numerous challenges, as utilities seek to upgrade their legacy thermal generation while at the same time integrating renewable energy resources into their fleets. The advent of decentralized, distributed power generation also has brought digitization to the forefront, particularly as companies work to improve the quality of the data they’re gathering from their power plants, and figure out how to access and use an ever-larger quantity of information about how their assets are operating.

Awesense, a Vancouver, British Columbia technology group, is among the companies working to help power generators integrate digitization into their operations. The company’s Digital Energy Platform, “a digital twin-based energy analytics platform that allows utilities to scale at the same pace as the rapidly changing technology landscape of the energy grid,” is designed to support energy providers at a time when changing business models have become a constant in the industry.…

GE Hitachi Advances Collaboration to Bolster BWRX-300 SMR Deployment in Estonia

March 8, 2021

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GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) and Estonian firm Fermi Energia OÜ have entered into a teaming agreement to support potential deployment of a BWRX-300 small modular reactor (SMR) in the Baltic country.

The agreement between the technology company and the firm established in 2019 by nuclear industry professionals comes two years after the companies inked a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to examine the economic feasibility of deploying a 300-MWe BWRX-300 SMR in Estonia.

“Through the teaming agreement GEH expects to support Fermi Energia in key areas such as licensing, human resources and supply chain development as well as continued development of the information and analysis needed for potential deployment of the BWRX-300 in Estonia,” GEH said on March 8.

The development is another notable step for Fermi Energia, which has conducted feasibility studies for several SMR technologies along with the BWRX-300. These include Moltex Energy’s 300-MWe Stable Salt Reactor (SSR), NuScale’s small light water reactor modules; Terrestrial’s IMSR-400, a 195-MWe Generation IV nuclear technology that uses a molten fluoride salt; and Ultra Safe Nuclear Corp.’s …

Big Data: The New Age of ‘Fortune Telling’ Requires Human Collaboration More Than Ever

June 24, 2020

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Ancient Chinese fortune tellers used heated metal pokers to create cracks in bones or empty turtle shells. By reading the patterns in the cracks, they attempted to calm the unease that comes with the innate uncertainty of the world—especially the ancient world. They predicted the future and doled out advice that affected the fate and fortunes of states and their people.

Thousands of years have passed since the earliest fortunes were told, but despite scientific and technological advances, the uncertainty that underpinned ancient fortune telling is, stubbornly, still with us. In 2020, sophisticated modern analytics have raised the bar on predictive precision, but they have not removed (or even reduced) risk and uncertainty from our decision-making. Just like with cracks, people don’t trust the algorithms and technical solutions to make decisions on their own. There needs to be room for the human who reads the cracks.…

Energy Insiders Say Tech, Collaboration Key to Utility Storm Prep

June 13, 2019

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Hurricane season is underway and summer heat already has arrived in many areas, which again puts the spotlight on utilities, the power grid, and disaster response plans after a series of major weather events and wildfires caused outages and other disruptions in the U.S. and Caribbean in recent years.

“We’re seeing these events occur, and regardless of where you stand on climate change, we have to ask ourselves, ‘How do we as utility deal with this?’ ” said Darrel Anderson, president and CEO of IDACORP Inc., which includes Idaho Power as a subsidiary, as he kicked off a panel discussion titled “Taming Nature’s Fury: Electric Companies and Extreme Weather Events,” on June 11 at the Edison Electric Institute’s annual convention in Philadelphia. The panel included Margaret Peloso, a partner with Vinson & Elkins who deals with environmental and natural resource issues; Ronald Brise, a former commissioner with the Florida Public Service Commission; and Barnie Gyant, a deputy regional forester with the U.S.…

In Push for Collaboration, Solar and Storage Industries Unveil “Smart Solar” Potential

July 17, 2016

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Pairing solar with energy storage will be integral to cement the future of both emerging sectors, said experts at the Intersolar North America’s annual event held this week in San Francisco.

The three-day event and exhibition was co-located with ees North America, a stand-alone event focused on energy storage technologies and services. But experts from the separate industry events underscored that the sectors’ futures are aligned and should grow in tandem, calling for the backing of a joint, “smart solar” sector.

Solar’s Unique Revenue Catch-22

The solar sector, in particular, has seen a number of hurdles that threaten its widespread adoption, the most cited of which are linked to its non-dispatchable nature.

Though solar penetration has soared, behind-the-meter applications have been hampered by ruthless net energy metering battles between regulators and electric utilities in at least 20 states. Utilities argue that net metering customers don’t pay their fair share of grid expenses, raising costs for non-solar ratepayers, whereas the solar sector says that utilities don’t fully account for distributed solar’s value to the grid, such as capacity value, transmission and distribution deferral, and line loss savings.…