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California Will Add Gas-Fired Units to Increase Power Supply

August 22, 2021

The post California Will Add Gas-Fired Units to Increase Power Supply appeared first on POWER Magazine.

The California Energy Commission (CEC) has approved licenses for gas-fired power units to help the state cope with continued electricity shortages. The move comes after Gov. Gavin Newsom earlier declared a state of emergency for California’s power grid.

The state’s Dept. of Water Resources is procuring what it called five temporary gas-fueled generators, each with generation capacity of 30 MW, to install at existing power plants. The CEC on Aug. 17 approved licenses, good for up to five years, for the generators.

Newsom’s order, issued in July, is designed to free up additional energy capacity in the state. It came during a major heat wave and was partly in response to the Bootleg Fire in Oregon, which threatened the regional power transmission system and California’s power supply. The governor’s order suspends certain permitting requirements, and allows the use of backup power generation, with a goal of alleviating heat-related supply demands on the power grid.…

Gas Exploration and Production Company to Buy Gas-Fired Power Plant in Texas

August 16, 2021

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BKV Corp., a privately held natural gas exploration and production company headquartered in Denver, Colorado, said it will purchase the Temple 1 power plant in Temple, Texas. The deal, valued at $ 430 million and subject to customary closing conditions, is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2021.

“We’re excited about this acquisition, and the strategic steps we are taking to position BKV as a leading integrated energy company with cleaner, greener energy,” Chris Kalnin, CEO of BKV, said in a statement issued to POWER. “By extending our natural gas business into a power business we are able to deliver to unprecedented grid reliability, while also creating industry leading ESG [environmental, social, and governance] standards because we can directly certify our emissions footprint at each step in the value chain, from underground molecule to burner tip.”

State-of-the-Art Facility

Temple 1 (Figure 1) is a 758-MW combined cycle facility built in 2014.…

UK’s First Gas-Fired Allam Cycle Power Plant Taking Shape

July 18, 2021

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The inventor of the Allam-Fetvedt Cycle, a novel power cycle that uses supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO₂), is collaborating with a subsidiary of Singapore-based Sembcorp Industries to potentially develop the UK’s first 300-MW natural gas–fired NET Power station at an existing site at Teesside, northeastern England.

Zero Degrees Whitetail Development Ltd. (ZDW), a subsidiary of North Carolina-based 8 Rivers Capital, and Sembcorp subsidiary Sembcorp Energy UK (SEUK) on July 13 said they will collaborate to set up the 300-MW Whitetail Clean Energy NET Power project at SEUK’s Wilton International site. While the companies did not provide a potential start date, 8 Rivers said the project may be the first of “multiple 300-MW facilities in the UK,” and that it could commission a NET Power station in the UK “as soon as 2025.”

The project is another notable prospect for 8 Rivers, which has been developing its potentially revolutionary power plant based on the Allam-Fetvedt Cycle (AFC) since 2012 under NET Power, a business arm it holds jointly with heavyweight industry backers Exelon, McDermott, and Occidental Low Carbon Ventures.…

Xcel Scrapping Plan to Build New 800-MW Gas-Fired Plant

June 28, 2021

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Xcel Energy is pivoting from its plan to build a new 800-MW natural gas-fired power plant at the site of its Sherco coal-fired facility in Becker, Minnesota. Instead, Xcel plans to build two smaller gas-fired “peaker” plants, one in Minnesota and one in North Dakota, as part of a new initiative for the utility’s power generation in the Midwest.

Xcel also proposed two repowered gas-fired plants—one in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, and another in Wisconsin—that also would run only during periods of high demand for electricity. The utility, based in Minneapolis and with operations in eight states, outlined its proposal in a plan submitted to the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC) on June 25.

Xcel’s still plans to close its Minnesota coal-fired power plants, include Sherco’s three units that have more than 2,200 MW of generation capacity, by 2030. Sherco—short for Sherburne County Generating Station—began operating in the 1970s.…

Exec Calls for Action on New Texas Gas-Fired Plants

June 16, 2021

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The chief executive of a Connecticut-based energy investment firm has called for action on his group’s proposal to build as many as 11 new natural gas-fired power plants in Texas.

Himanshu Saxena, CEO of Starwood Energy Group, in a June 14 interview said, “We would like to see significant steps in countering, negotiating and material tangible actions on our proposal.”

Saxena’s comments, published by Reuters, came the same day the state’s grid operator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), asked Texans to reduce their electricity use “as much as possible” this week. ERCOT said that power plants accounting for as much as 11 GW of generation capacity were offline due to what it called “forced outages,” at a time when temperatures have soared into the upper 90s in the state. ERCOT in an email to POWER wrote that “forced outages are unscheduled and result from the failure of a power plant to function as designed.”…

$8 Billion Proposals Could Bring New Gas-Fired Plants to Texas

April 28, 2021

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An energy investment group told Texas regulators the company has a plan to help solve some of that state’s electricity reliability issues, proposing a plan similar to one put forth by billionaire Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Energy in March.

Starwood Energy Group on April 23 sent the state’s Public Utility Commission a proposal to build 11 natural gas-fired power plants, investing more than $ 8 billion to develop and construct the facilities. Representatives from Berkshire Hathaway Energy last month met with Texas lawmakers and said their group was prepared to spend about $ 8.3 billion to build 10 gas-fired plants across the state.

Starwood, based in Greenwich, Connecticut, in an April 23 letter from CEO Himanshu Saxena to the Texas PUC (PUCT) and the board of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the state’s main grid operator, said it wanted to outline “a compelling proposal to solve ERCOT’s reliability issues as was demonstrated by the energy crisis that occurred in February 2021.”…