News
LCG, April 15, 2025--Matrix Renewables announced today the successful commissioning of the Pleasant Valley Solar 1 power generation facility in Ada County, Idaho. The 200-MWac solar facility includes a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) that was secured through negotiation with Meta and Idaho Power. Matrix Renewables states the facility is the largest operational solar facility in Idaho Power's system. Sundt Renewables, the Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) services provider, completed construction of the project on March 2nd.
Read more
|
LCG, April 9, 2025--Duke Energy announced yesterday its submission of a subsequent license renewal (SLR) application to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for the Robinson Nuclear Plant, a 759-MW nuclear unit located near Hartsville, South Carolina. The application requests extending the plant's operations for an additional 20 years.
Read more
|
|
|
Industry News
Sierra Club Loses Challenge of Air Permit Issued for New Gas-fired Power Plant in Texas
LCG, March 21, 2014 - The United States Environmental Appeals Board rejected on March 14 a Sierra Club petition for a review of an air permit issued to La Paloma Energy Center LLC for a gas-fired, combined-cycle power project in Harlingen, Texas. With the decision, an obstacle in the path towards construction is set aside. The project is being developed by Coronado Power Ventures, LLC and Bechtel.
Last November, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 6 issued the permit to La Paloma Energy Center, LLC (LPEC). The permit authorizes LPEC to construct and operate a 637-MW to 735-MW natural gas-fired power plant. In December, the Sierra Club filed a petition challenging the La Paloma permit on the grounds that the EPA erred or abused its discretion by failing to base the emissions limits for each of the plant's three gas combustion turbine (CT) units on the energy efficiency of the most efficient of three technologies proposed by the developer.
The Environmental Appeals Board stated in its March 14 order denying review of the prevention of significant deterioration (PSD) permit, "Sierra Club has failed to demonstrate that the Region clearly erred or abused its discretion in establishing the GHG permit limits for the combustion turbines at the proposed LPEC facility. The Board finds no support in EPA's Best Available Control Technology [BACT] guidance for Sierra Club's position that the three specific turbine models proposed by LPEC must be identified as separate control technologies throughout the Region's five-step analysis." The Board concluded that the Region had a rational basis for its determinations that all three of the permitted turbine models considered are comparably efficient, that the assigned BACT limits are substantially equivalent except for marginal differences attributable to capacity, and that the GHG emission limits for all three turbine models represent BACT for highly efficient combined cycle combustion turbines.
The Sierra Club also challenged the permit on the grounds the EPA did not require LPEC to consider a design incorporating solar thermal energy to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions because the Region incorrectly concluded that solar technology would redefine the source of the GHGs. However, the Board concluded, "Under the circumstances of this case, the business purposes and site-specific constraints described in the administrative record support the Region's conclusion that the addition of supplemental solar power to this facility would constitute redesign of the source."
|
|
|
UPLAN-NPM
The Locational Marginal Price Model (LMP) Network Power Model
|
|
UPLAN-ACE
Day Ahead and Real Time Market Simulation
|
|
UPLAN-G
The Gas Procurement and Competitive Analysis System
|
|
PLATO
Database of Plants, Loads, Assets, Transmission...
|
|
|
|