Company & Industry
News
FINDING THE ECONOMIC OPTIMUM IN POWER PLANT O&M
WHY THE LOWEST O&M BUDGET IS RARELY THE MOST PROFITABLE By: Robert Wolfe, Director of Asset Optimization, NAES Executive Summary. O&M budgets should be evaluated by the operating margin they enable, not by cost adherence alone. The optimal investment level...
Independent Engineering: Turning Power Plant Plans into Bankable Projects
Most energy projects don’t stall because the design is flawed; they stall because lenders don’t have enough confidence in the risks, controls, and cash-flow stability. Developers and plant teams naturally lead with technical capability; the...
EPCm Project Delivery: A Critical Solution for The Thermal Power Build-out in The AI Era
As the world races to expand firm, dispatchable thermal generation to meet the extraordinary electricity requirements of AI and data-center infrastructure, the Engineering, Procurement, and Construction Management (EPCm) model has become an attractive and necessary...
Large Loads Looming Concern
by Leland McMillan, NERC Supervisor “Load” has emerged as a reliability impact lately, but not the load that you might be thinking of. Generation Load is often defined as electrical power that a generator can...
AI in Power Plant Cybersecurity: What You Need to Know
by Eddie Aveitia, NERC CIP Reliability Specialist The Changing Threat Landscape Artificial intelligence is changing how both attackers and defenders approach cybersecurity at power generation facilities. You don’t need to be an IT expert to...
How Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) Impact the Electrical Grid
By Richard Schlottmann, NERC Project Manager Introduction Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) are emerging as a pivotal technology in the evolution of the electrical grid, offering a blend of flexibility, reliability, and resilience that addresses many...
Section 1600 Reporting
By Stefano Schnitger, Senior NERC Reliability Specialist The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) Section 1600 reporting framework authorizes targeted data requests from registered entities to support reliability oversight under Section 215 of the Federal...
ERCOT’s 2026 Winter Outlook for Texas
By Mike Moyer, Power Market Compliance Services Specialist ERCOT stated that the Texas power grid is better equipped than in past years to deal with an extreme weather event. Changes have been made to the...
2026 NERC CMEP: What GO/GOPs Should Prepare for This Coming Year
by Sean Thompson, NERC Supervisor Each year, the ERO Enterprise CMEP Implementation Plan signals the reliability, and compliance risks that Compliance Enforcement Authorities (CEAs) are most likely to probe. For Generator Owners (GOs) and Generator...
Data Center Construction Management
BREAKING THROUGH 2026’S POWER INFRASTRUCTURE BOTTLENECKS A View on 2026’s Power Challenges Data center developers are racing to support AI-driven growth, but a number of challenges persist. Grid constraints, long lead times for critical equipment,...
