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National Engineers Week: Engineering for the Power World

February 21, 2019

This week (Feb. 17–23) is National Engineers Week. “EWeek” as the National Society of Professional Engineers calls it, is a formal coalition of more than 70 engineering, education, and cultural societies, and more than 50 corporations, and government agencies. Its key goal: raising public awareness of engineers’ positive contributions to quality of life.

Over the 14 decades it has been in print, POWER’s pages have captured countless engineering achievements that have advanced the world of power generation. In honor of EWeek, here some recent important stories that shed light on engineering topics and illustrate how important engineering is to our sector. Find many more in our archives at powermag.com.

Who Needs an Owner’s Engineer?

March 2011
In the past, members of a utility’s engineering staff spent their career designing and building new power plants. Today, many utility engineers find that opportunity comes around only once in a career. To fill the experience gap, an “owner’s engineer” company can add to a utility’s team a cadre of highly qualified power engineers who focus on avoiding design errors and keeping the project on schedule.…

Two Harriet Monroe Poems About Power Plants

February 15, 2019

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Harriet Monroe, the founder and longtime editor of Poetry magazine, was the author of a large body of poems that captured the essence of urban industrial modernity. Her 1914 book, You and I ( Macmillan Company, New York), contains two poems about power generation.

The first, “The Turbine,” is an engineer’s ode to his turbine. The second, “A Power-Plant,” references Edison’s Fisk Street power plant in Chicago—the plant that housed GE’s first (5-MW) steam turbine generator unit. The 1903-opened plant was permanently closed in 2012.

THE TURBINE

To W.S.M.

Look at her—there she sits upon her throne
As ladylike and quiet as a nun!
But if you cross her—whew! her thunderbolts
Will shake the earth ! She’s proud as any
queen,
The beauty—knows her royal business too,
To light the world, and does it night by night
When her gay lord, the sun, gives up his job.
I am her slave; I wake and watch and run
From dark till dawn beside her.…

THE BIG PICTURE: World’s Biggest Power Companies

February 1, 2019

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In 2017, the 10 largest power companies, ranked by their installed generation capacity, owned 18% of total global installed capacity, while the next-largest 15 owned around 10%—meaning that the top 25 companies own nearly 30% of global installed power generation capacity, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Chinese companies account for more than one-eighth of global installed capacity, owing to that country’s expansion of its generation fleet
to 1,750 GW, from about 400 GW in 2003. By comparison, in 2003, European-owned utilities dominated the list, accounting for almost 13% of installed capacity worldwide. Source: © OECD/IEA 2018 World Energy Outlook.
—Copy and artwork by Sonal Patel, a POWER associate editor.

The post THE BIG PICTURE: World’s Biggest Power Companies appeared first on POWER Magazine.

POWER Magazine…

Community Solar Power Offers the ‘Best of Both Worlds’ [PODCAST]

January 28, 2019

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Laura Stern, co-founder and president of Nautilus Solar Energy, was a guest on The POWER Podcast. Founded in 2006, Nautilus is a leading acquirer, developer, and operator of community solar projects. During the past five months, the company has acquired community solar projects in Minnesota, Massachusetts, New York, Maryland, and Rhode Island.

Community solar refers to local solar facilities shared by multiple community subscribers who receive credit on their electricity bills for their share of the power produced. This solar power model is being rapidly adopted throughout the U.S. According to the Solar Energy Industries Association—the national trade association of the U.S. solar energy industry—there was 1,294 MW of installed community solar capacity at the end of June 2018, with at least one community solar project online in 42 states. Furthermore, the group says the market will add as much as 3 GW over the next several years.

Community solar allows homeowners, renters, and businesses to have equal access to the economic and environmental benefits of solar energy generation regardless of the physical attributes or ownership of their homes or businesses.…

Growth in Renewables Continues Despite Drop in UK Power Generation

January 8, 2019

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Renewable energy sources increased their share of the UK’s electricity supply in 2018, with new wind farms and biomass plants helping renewables contribute a record 33% of the country’s power in the past year. Coal-fired units, meanwhile, saw a 25% drop in their output, with coal providing about 5% of the country’s total generation.

The UK has said it wants to phase out all coal generation by 2025.

An analysis by Carbon Brief, a UK-based climate science and energy policy group that advises the government, in a report released Jan. 3 noted that the amount of electricity produced in the UK last year was at its lowest level since 1994, despite sustained population growth during the period, including an increase of 6 million people since 2005. Analysts said the reduced need for power is due to increasingly efficient use of energy and the country’s changing economy.

Carbon Brief’s report noted 335 TWh were generated by UK power plants last year, a drop of about 1% from 2017.…

EPA: Mercury Rules for Coal, Oil Power Units Not ‘Appropriate and Necessary’

December 28, 2018

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Because compliance costs to coal- and oil-fired power plants for the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) far exceed quantifiable benefits to regulating hazardous air pollutant (HAP) emissions, the Trump administration has proposed it is not “appropriate and necessary” to regulate HAP emissions from power plants under Section 112 of the Clean Air Act (CAA), according to a document signed by acting Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Andrew Wheeler on Dec. 27.

However, the EPA did not propose to remove coal- and oil-fired power plants from the list of source categories regulated under that section of the CAA, which means the 2012-finalized MATS remains in place. The EPA’s proposal, released publicly Dec. 28, is outlined in a revision to the agency’s final supplemental cost finding for MATS, which was required by a U.S. Supreme Court decision in June 2015.

The agency on Friday also made public proposed results of the long-awaited MATS risk and technology review (RTR). The separate evaluations of risk and technology are required under CAA Section 112 every eight years after final HAP standards go into effect to determine if new developments should be incorporated into the standards.…