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India Launches Probe of Power Plant Blast; Death Toll at 36

November 14, 2017

India’s Power Ministry has established a committee to investigate the November 1 explosion at NTPC’s thermal power plant in Unchahar. The death toll from the blast is at 36, and dozens more workers at the plant were injured when flue gases and steam were released from a 500-MW coal-fired unit at the plant. Several remain hospitalized with severe burns.

The investigative panel was created November 6 by order of the Power Ministry, under a provision of the country’s Electricity Act 2003. It is led by P.D. Siwal, a thermal power expert from the Central Electricity Authority (CEA). The Power Ministry said it wants a report from the committee within the next month, and would like a report on the cause of the blast within the next week. The agency also asked the committee to “fix responsibility for lapses, if any,” and “to suggest remedial measures to avoid recurrence of such incidents in future.”

Other members of the investigating committee are Subir Chakraborty, director of projects for Uttar Pradesh Rajya Vidyut Utpadan Nigam Ltd.…

FPL Halfway Through 600-MW Solar Power Expansion

October 23, 2017

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Florida Power & Light (FPL), which recently sustained a blow to its nuclear expansion plans, on October 19 said it’s about halfway through an ambitious plan to add eight new solar plants in the state by early 2018, as it continues to increase its photovoltaic (PV) generation capacity as part of a larger strategy to install more than 10 million solar panels in its service territory by 2023.

FPL already has installed about 1.25 million solar panels at the eight new plants, with another 1.25 million to go. It’s the utility’s largest one-year solar expansion, surpassing the company’s installation of 1 million panels at three solar plants in 2016. FPL said construction at the sites at its peak employed more than 1,000 workers.

FPL President and CEO Eric Silagy on October 19 said the company is “investing nearly $ 1 billion to grow solar in Florida this year alone.” Silagy, visiting the Barefoot Bay Solar Energy Center in Brevard County on Thursday as part of a tour with local officials, said: “Together, these eight new plants are projected to generate an estimated net lifetime savings of more than $ 100 million for our customers, over and above the cost of construction.”…

Eversource Will Sell 14 New Hampshire Power Plants, Completing Deregulation

October 15, 2017

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Fourteen power plants in New Hampshire, including nine hydroelectric facilities, will soon have new owners as Eversource Energy divests its holdings in the state to satisfy an agreement with state regulators. Eversource outlined the sale of the hydro assets, along with three fossil fuel-fired plants and two combustion peaker units, in an October 12 filing with the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission (NHPUC).

The NHPUC is expected to approve the deal, with the transactions expected to close by year-end 2017 or in early 2018. As part of the agreement, the new owners must keep the plants in service for at least 18 months. The ownership change will mark the completion of electric deregulation in New Hampshire and bring rate adjustments to customers in the first half of 2018, according to an Eversource spokesman, who said the Eversource plants were the last operated by a regulated utility in New England.

Eversource now will purchase electricity on the wholesale market, which the utility said will lower rates for its customers.…

EPA Ready to Attack Clean Power Plan

October 8, 2017

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The Trump administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is considering its options to repeal or replace the Clean Power Plan (CPP), the signature climate regulation of former President Barack Obama.

POWER magazine on October 6 obtained a 43-page draft of the EPA’s proposed action on the CPP. The formal document is expected to be released soon. The document notes “The EPA has not determined whether it will promulgate a rule … to regulate greenhouse gas [GHG] emissions from existing EGUs [electric generating units], and, if it will do so, when it will do so and what form that rule will take.”

President Donald Trump has said the CPP violates federal law, something the EPA proposal says it will attempt to determine. Trump has said the emissions regulations could cost power consumers as much as $ 33 billion. He also has called the CPP a “job killer,” and in June said he would pull the U.S. out of the landmark Paris climate agreement after saying that man-made climate change is a “hoax.”…

GE Power Sells Lucrative Water & Process Technologies Division to SUEZ in $3.4B Deal

October 2, 2017

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Less than a week after GE struck a $ 2.6 billion deal with ABB for GE’s electrification business, GE Power completed the $ 3.4 billion sale of its lucrative water and process technologies division to multinational water management firm SUEZ.

The sale of GE Water & Process Technologies, a systems and services provider of water, wastewater and process systems solutions, was completed on September 30 but announced on October 2. According to GE and SUEZ, the division manned by 7,500 employees generated about $ 2.1 billion in revenues for GE in 2016. Today’s announcement, on the heels of last week’s GE-ABB deal, is part of the company’s transition under new CEO John Flannery.

According to Russell Stokes, who replaced Steve Bolze as president and CEO of GE Power in July, the sale of GE Water & Process Technologies is the “next step in GE Power’s business strategy and portfolio transformation.”

Bolze, whose final day at GE was September 30, announced his retirement from GE this June after he lost out to Flannery as successor to CEO Jeff Immelt.…

Wave and Tidal Power Technology Near Commercialization

September 4, 2017

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Scotland, which is authorized to set its own energy policy separate from London’s Westminster government, has set a goal of generating 100% of the nation’s annual electricity needs through only renewable sources by 2020, and 100% of its entire power and transportation needs from non-carbon energy by 2030. This decision has created an all-of-the-above clean development strategy as well as a stronger commitment to energy self-reliance. By looking inward at what internal resources exist, Scotland is now home to the most-advanced wave and tidal energy development center in the world.

For decades, engineers have been trying to turn the immense potential of tidal energy into electricity. While ocean currents don’t reach the same speeds that wind can, the inherent energy potential by comparison is enormous. Seawater has more than 800 times the density of air, so for the same rotor swept area, water moving at 2.5 meters per second (m/sec)—roughly 5 knots—exerts the same amount of force as would be applied by wind blowing at nearly 100 m/sec (about 195 knots).…