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GE Turbines Will Equip Vietnam’s First LNG-Fueled Power Plant

May 16, 2022

Two units of a new gas-fired power plant in Vietnam will feature the first use of General Electric’s (GE’s) H-Class turbine in the country.

GE on May 16 announced that PetroVietnam Power Corp.’s (PV Power’s) Nhon Trach 3 & 4 Power Plant, with 1.6 GW of generation capacity, will use two GE 9HA.02 gas turbines. It also will be the first power station in Vietnam fueled by liquefied natural gas (LNG).

The new units are expected to provide electricity for three large industrial areas in the southern region of the country including Ho Chi Minh City, Dong Nai, and Ba Ria–Vung Tau provinces.

LNG projects are being developed in Vietnam as the country tries to wean itself off coal-fired power generation, which supplies about half the country’s electricity. Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh in November of last year said Vietnam wants to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

The country’s ruling Communist Party has said it does not want to build nuclear power plants, and in 2016 scrapped plans for reactors backed by both Japan and Russia.…

The POWER Interview: Importance of Pricing Data for Renewable Energy

May 4, 2022

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The highs and lows of markets for renewable energy are driving more interest in granular pricing data. Any company embarking on a new project must do its research to ensure that it calculates the proceeds based on the right financial information. With so much data now readily available, it’s more important than ever to use the right data, and make accurate calculations.

Amid the boom in demand for renewable power plants, that is not always happening when backers go to measure the value of the energy they will generate. Here’s why, according to Jennifer Newman, vice president of Atmospheric Science Research at REsurety, the Boston, Massachusetts-based renewable industry data and analytics company, who says friends don’t let friends use “8760s.”

POWER: What is an 8760 and how is it used in the renewable energy industry?

Newman: An 8760 (sometimes referred to as a typical meteorological year or TMY) consists of hourly generation values for a wind or solar project for all 8,760 hours of a typical year.…

Duke Energy Could Power Purdue with Nuclear Project

April 28, 2022

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Small modular reactors (SMRs) are widely considered the best technology to increase the use of nuclear power worldwide, with advocates touting their zero-emission production of electricity, smaller land footprint, and scalability. SMRs also offer a cost savings over construction of new utility-scale nuclear reactors.

Powering a college campus with nuclear energy has increasingly been a topic of discussion in recent years, as universities try to reduce their carbon footprint and many seek to upgrade older, fossil fuel-powered central utility plants. Purdue University and Duke Energy on April 27 announced that officials will jointly look at the feasibility of using nuclear power to meet the school’s energy needs.

“No other option holds as much potential to provide reliable, adequate electric power with zero carbon emissions,” said Mitch Daniels, Purdue’s president since 2013 after serving two terms as Indiana’s governor. “Innovation and new ideas are at the core of what we do at Purdue, and that includes searching for ways to minimize the use of fossil fuels while still providing carbon-free, reliable, and affordable energy.…

EPA Proposes Tighter Controls on NOx Emissions from Power Plants, Industrial Sources

April 18, 2022

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A sweeping new proposed rule published in the Federal Register by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on April 6 establishes new nitrogen oxide (NO_x) emissions budgets that will require fossil fuel–fired power plants in 25 states to participate in an allowance-based ozone season trading program starting in 2023.

The proposal, which builds on the agency’s existing Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR), seeks to implement the EPA’s 2015 National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for ozone of 70 parts per billion by imposing federal implementation plans (FIPs) on these states using its authority under the “good neighbor” requirements of the Clean Air Act. States affected are: Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

The EPA’s existing CSAPR ozone-season NO_x program limits NO_x emissions from fossil fuel–fired electric generating units (EGUs) in 22 states during the ozone season, which runs from May 1 through September 30.…

Tri-State Moves to Retire Rifle Combined Cycle Power Plant

April 9, 2022

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Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, a wholesale power supply cooperative with 45 members in four states—Colorado, Nebraska, New Mexico, and Wyoming—announced its intentions to retire the Rifle Station, an 85-MW combined cycle facility in Rifle, Colorado.

The announcement was made on April 5 in conjunction with a filing with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). If approved, the plant would be closed “on or about Oct. 6, 2022,” Tri-State said.

The Rifle plant runs infrequently, according to the cooperative, because “sufficient and lower-cost resources” are available to serve member power requirements. The station reportedly would need “significant investments” to continue operating.

“The decision to retire Rifle Station comes as we transition to cleaner resources and reduce our wholesale rates,” Tri-State CEO Duane Highley said in a statement. “We appreciate our Rifle employees’ commitment and service through the years, and will be working with them to ease the impact of this transition.”

In January, Tri-State reached an agreement with more than two dozen parties on Phase I of its 2020 Electric Resource Plan (ERP), which was before the CPUC at the time.…

Power Companies Must Plan to Deal with Climate Risks

April 5, 2022

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The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a report at the end of February titled “Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability.” Among the warnings found in the 3,675-page report is that human-induced climate change is causing dangerous and widespread disruption in nature and affecting the lives of billions of people around the world, despite efforts to reduce the risks.

“When we look at the quantitative evidence, we clearly see that global average temperatures and sea levels have risen over the last 150 years, and that we are still on that trend. We also see that climate models cannot replicate historical observed global and continental changes without the human-related inputs, such as greenhouse gas emissions and land use activity,” Dr. Steven Rose, senior research economist and technical executive in the Energy Systems and Climate Analysis Group at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), who was also one of the lead authors of the IPCC report, told POWER.

“The evidence that climate change is affecting society and ecosystems has grown and is continuing to grow.…