Plant | EnergyNorthwest.com

FES Will Close Mansfield Coal Plant Early

August 13, 2019

FirstEnergy Solutions (FES) said it will close the Bruce Mansfield power plant in Pennsylvania in November, two years ahead of the previously scheduled closure for the facility’s remaining coal-fired unit.

FES in a statement August 9 cited a “lack of economic viability in current market conditions” for the decision to shutter the 830-MW Unit 3, which had been set to close in June 2021. Units 1 and 2 at the plant, each with 830 MW of generation capacity, were taken offline in February, just more than a year after a fire at the plant damaged equipment. Those units also had been scheduled to close in June 2021.

FES in a press release Friday said “deactivation activities” at Bruce Mansfield should be complete by May 2020. The group filed for bankruptcy in March 2018, as the company sought an “orderly financial restructuring.” FES at the time said both its coal-fired and nuclear power plants in Ohio and Pennsylvania were unprofitable.

Company officials in a statement Friday said, “The [Bruce Mansfield] deactivation will be safely and responsibly conducted in accordance with relevant regulations and guidelines.…

RWE Will Close Wales Plant, Leaving UK With Four Operating Coal Units

August 4, 2019

| No Comments

| Industry News

German utility RWE on August 1 announced it will close its last coal-fired power plant in the UK. The closure of the Aberthaw B power station in south Wales, scheduled by the end of March 2020, means just four coal plants will be operating in the UK. The plant originally was scheduled to be shuttered in 2021.

Roger Miesen, chief executive of RWE’s generation business, said in a statement Thursday: “This is a difficult time for everyone at Aberthaw power station. However, market conditions made this decision necessary.”

The UK has been moving on from coal-fired generation over the past few years, and less than 5% of the country’s power came from coal last year. The UK earlier this year went a week without using any electricity from coal.

The UK government has said all coal-fired generation in the country must end no later than 2025 to help meet climate targets. Several plant closures have been announced in recent months; EDF Energy, the London-based utility, in February said it would close its Cottam coal plant in September.…

TEPCO Says It Will Decommission Second Fukushima Nuclear Plant

July 25, 2019

| No Comments

| Industry News

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) on July 24 said it will decommission its Fukushima Daini nuclear station. The plant is located just south of the larger Fukushima Daiichi plant, site of a meltdown in March 2011 after an earthquake and tsunami heavily damaged the Daiichi facility.

The four reactors at Daini automatically shut down after the earthquake, reaching cold shutdown two days later. The reactors have not operated since.

Permanent closure of the Daini units would mean 21 reactors in Japan are scheduled for decommissioning. There were 54 operating reactors in the country prior to the 2011 disaster.

Nuclear power provided about 30% of Japan’s power prior to the earthquake. The country idled all its reactors in the wake of the meltdown, and only eight have been restarted, though several are continuing with a relicensing process required due to the country’s new operating standards after Fukushima.

Japan has relied on imported liquefied natural gas and thermal generation from imported coal to replace the lost nuclear generation since 2011.…

Watch Stack Come Down at Florida Power Plant

July 21, 2019

| No Comments

| Industry News

JEA, the electric utility in Jacksonville, Florida, has been decommissioning the St. Johns River Power Park over the past year. A third implosion as part of the decommissioning occurred July 19, as a 640-foot-tall stack and two steam generating boilers were demolished.

Friday’s work followed similar implosions in June 2018, when the plant’s two, 464-foot-tall cooling towers were taken down, and in April of this year when four selective catalytic reactors were destroyed.

The coal-fired plant, which was closed in January 2018 after operating since March 1987, is scheduled to be fully decommissioned in June 2020. JEA has said it will keep at least some of the 2,000-acre site for a future power station, and also for coal ash disposal. The plant was co-owned by JEA and Florida Power & Light.

Total Wrecking & Environmental, a demolition and remediation company based in Buffalo, New York, was awarded a $ 14.5 million contract to demolish the plant and provided video of Friday’s blast.…

Rhode Island Rejects Burrillville Gas-Fired Plant

June 25, 2019

| No Comments

| Industry News

A proposed 900-MW gas-fired power plant was rejected by Rhode Island regulators on June 20, leaving project developer Invenergy pondering its options for the planned facility in Burrillville.

Rhode Island’s Energy Facility Siting Board, after a daylong hearing in Warwick, said the plant is not needed. Chicago, Illinois–based Invenergy can appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court. The company has 10 days from the date the siting board finalizes its order to decide whether to appeal the decision.

“We will review the written decision and evaluate our options,” Invenergy spokeswoman Beth Conley said in a statement.

The Burrillville plant, known as the Clear River Energy Center, was first proposed four years ago, before falling power prices in the region and across New England brought questions about the economic viability of new power generation projects. Invenergy originally planned to bring the plant online this year; that date had been moved to 2023 pending state approval. A lower court in Rhode Island in April upheld a water agreement Invenergy had with the city of Johnston.…

POWER Notebook: GE Plant in France, Targeted for Job Cuts, Will Not Close

June 5, 2019

| No Comments

| Industry News

The head of GE’s operations in France told a Paris newspaper that a French factory targeted for more than 1,000 job cuts will not close. GE last week said it wanted to make its operations in France more efficient and said changes would come at the Belfort plant in eastern France, which handles technology for GE Power’s hydro, gas, steam, and nuclear technology.

Bruno Le Maire, France’s economy minister, had said he would try to save jobs at the plant after GE’s announcement on May 28. Job cuts were expected to be negotiated with the plant’s labor unions. GE had said it could cut up to 1,044 jobs at Belfort, where it employs about 4,300 workers, including 1,900 in the gas power unit. GE had said 792 job cuts could come from that unit, with other positions eliminated in support divisions.

Hugh Bailey, general manager of GE in France, in an interview published June 2 in the Paris-based Le Journal du Dimanche, was quoted as saying, “I want to be clear, Belfort will not close.…