from | EnergyNorthwest.com

GE, Siemens, Utilities Take Hits From Coronavirus

April 28, 2020

The post GE, Siemens, Utilities Take Hits From Coronavirus appeared first on POWER Magazine.

Lincoln-Project-Combustion-Gas-Turbine-Delivery-Siemens

U.S. power plant operators continue to change procedures at their facilities, including pushing back scheduled maintenance, due to lockdowns and quarantines associated with the coronavirus pandemic. The changes are impacting companies such as General Electric (GE) and Siemens, which are major service providers to power plants, at a time when these global companies already are taking a revenue hit due to COVID-19.

Maintenance of power plant generation equipment is a major revenue source for Siemens, GE, and other equipment manufacturers. GE’s aviation unit earlier this month announced it would furlough half of the division’s engine manufacturing workers, idling thousands of staff for as much as four weeks. That announcement came a few weeks after the company said it would cut 10% of the workers in that unit, or about 2,600 jobs. The company’s aviation business is struggling as airlines worldwide reduce orders, with many airlines simply parking planes due to the global collapse in air travel.…

EIA Notes Power Demand Destruction From Coronavirus

April 8, 2020

| No Comments

| Industry News

The post EIA Notes Power Demand Destruction From Coronavirus appeared first on POWER Magazine.

The coronavirus pandemic is altering the power landscape, with utilities and other power generators forced to adjust for load disruptions. Power consumption is changing as commercial and industrial electricity users close their businesses, and load is shifting to the residential sector with workers now settled in home offices, and students practicing remote and distance learning.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) in its latest Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) published April 7 said it expects significant impacts to U.S. electricity consumption, and the group has lowered its estimates for power generation through the rest of this year.

“The economic slowdown and stay-at-home orders will likely affect U.S. electricity consumption over the next few months, with the largest impact occurring in the commercial sector because of business closures,” according to the outlook. “We also estimate that sales of electricity to industry will fall as factories cut back production.…

Job Crafting from the Outside In – Harvard Business Review

March 24, 2020

| No Comments

| Energy Jobs

Job Crafting from the Outside In Harvard Business Review
“job” – Google News…

Wind Energy Group Says $43 Billion at Risk from COVID-19

March 23, 2020

| No Comments

| Industry News

The post Wind Energy Group Says $ 43 Billion at Risk from COVID-19 appeared first on POWER Magazine.

Energy groups continue to assess the industry disruption caused by the coronavirus, with the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) on March 19 saying the global pandemic is putting $ 43 billion of wind industry investments and payments at risk.

Utilities, grid operators, and other have been altering their routines as state and local governments call for the closures of many non-essential businesses. Energy companies have instituted travel bans, have shuttered their offices—asking many employees to work remotely—and changed how they will interact with customers.

Abigail Ross Hopper, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association, earlier this week said the virus has caused “a pretty significant crisis” for the solar industry, disrupting supply chains and likely creating labor shortages. Tom Kiernan, CEO of AWEA, on Thursday acknowledged the challenges the coronavirus is causing for the wind energy industry, going so far as to ask for Congress to intervene to protect jobs and economic investment in the sector.…

Mixed Reactions to FERC’s Recent MOPR Order from Power Generators

December 28, 2019

| No Comments

| Industry News

The post Mixed Reactions to FERC’s Recent MOPR Order from Power Generators appeared first on POWER Magazine.

On Dec. 19, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) directed PJM Interconnection to dramatically expand its Minimum Offer Price Rule (MOPR) to nearly all state-subsidized capacity resources. It’s the latest of a series of dramatic revisions to the grid operator’s rule, which essentially functions to provide a minimum offer screening process to bar new market entrants from artificially depressing capacity auction clearing prices.

See why the recent order is significant here, “The Significance of FERC’s Recent PJM MOPR Order Explained.”

The barrage of news reports about the order that followed its release focused heavily on the divided vote, noting it fell along the commissioners’ political affiliations: Chairman Neil Chatterjee and Bernard McNamee are Republicans, and Richard Glick is a Democrat. As Cheryl LaFleur, a commissioner who left FERC in August, told POWER, FERC—an independent regulatory government agency that is officially organized as part of the Department of Energy—has increasingly been mired in partisanship and politicization.…

Protecting Critical Infrastructure from Drone Intrusions

November 2, 2019

| No Comments

| Industry News

The post Protecting Critical Infrastructure from Drone Intrusions appeared first on POWER Magazine.

Drones represent a classic good news/bad news scenario. The good news is great. The bad news is terrifying.

On the good news front, drones can keep utility-sector workers safely on the ground, with the machines performing aerial inspections at a fraction of what it would cost to do with manned aircraft. They provide faster, easier inspection of boilers, stacks, towers, and other infrastructure.

1. Drones—unmanned aerial vehicles—are often used to conduct inspections and collect data from power generation sites, and transmission and distribution assets. But they also can pose a security risk with their ability to intrude upon areas humans are not able to access. Courtesy: S. Hermann and F. Richter / Pixabay

The bad news? Drones (Figure 1) represent an enormous threat across the energy sector—from production to distribution.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security notes: “There are 16 critical infrastructure sectors whose assets, systems, and networks, whether physical or virtual, are considered so vital to the United States that their incapacitation or destruction would have a debilitating effect on security, national economic security, national public health or safety, or any combination thereof.”…