GLG News by Utilities and Power Generation Experts (US)

    The anticipated export of Eastern U.S. coal in 2008 and 2009 will need to be sourced in great extent from the Powder River Basin (PRB).  This is in addition to the new coal plants coming on in 2008 and 2009 using PRB coal. The discussion below provides a forecast on...

    The global coal availability and price has provided the opportunity for U.S. Eastern coals to be placed in export to Europe.  This has dramatically increased Eastern coal prices.  This provides an opportunity for Western Powder River Basin (PRB) coals.

    The increase in coal prices will obviously increase the electricity generating costs at a coal plant exposed to these price increases.  The impact to Independent Power Producers (IPPs) and their potential margins is understood.  Regulated utilities, on the other hand,...

    The global coal availability and subsequent coal price explosion has provided a great benefit to Eastern U.S. coal producers.  The Western U.S. coals may not be able to appreciably directly-participate in the export surge.

The photovoltaic feedstock industry has been generally upbeat in being able to expand polysilicon production.  A balance of supply with growing demand could mean wafer, cell and module price declines.  However, production has to come on line and logistical and problems are cropping up...

The Japanese photovoltaic market has been ailing as of late.  Their great initiative of 1993-2004 resulted in hundreds of thousands of residential-scale installations, making PV approachable in cost-effectiveness to Japanese residential rate payers.  But since then, a lack of political...

The global wind power industry continues its remarkable growth with over 20,000 megawatts (MW) of new capacity in 2007.  This raises the global installed capacity to over 90,000 MW.   The sheer numbers demonstrate wind powered electricity becoming statistically significant in world consumption,...

Concern that global photovoltaic market growth can falter in 2009 may be alleviated by growing markets such as Canada. The Canadian market, primarily Ontario, is being driven by the Ontario Power Authority's Standard Offer Program.  Over 300 Megawatts of photovoltaic projects are in the...

    If low water levels used for cooling caused nuclear plants to operate less or back-off entirely at certain locations, this would be bullish for coal-fired (and natural gas-fired generation) and mitigate or cancel the concerns of an economic slowdown on coal-fired electricity...

    Discussion has been made that a U.S. recession will cause a decline in coal consumption by the electric power sector.  This is unlikely based on coal’s relative cost to generate electricity and the historical coal consumption by the electric power sector in previous economic...