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REC Silicon Suspends Polysilicon Production at Moses Lake

REC Silicon, a leading producer of high-purity silicon materials for the solar and semiconductor industries, has announced the suspension of polysilicon production at its Moses Lake, Washington facility. This decision marks a significant shift in the company's operations and has implications for the U.S. solar manufacturing sector.

Background

The Moses Lake plant has been a cornerstone of REC Silicon's operations, producing polysilicon—a critical material for solar panel manufacturing. However, the facility has faced challenges in...

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Climate Change News

FBI Warns of Cyber Risks as Renewable Energy Grows

As the adoption of renewable energy technologies accelerates across the globe, the FBI has issued a stark warning about the increasing cyber risks associated with these advancements. The rise in renewable energy infrastructure, while crucial for achieving climate goals, has also attracted the...
Utility News

DOE Prioritizes Baseload Generation

In a strategic move to tackle the growing electricity demand and bolster energy security, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), under Secretary Chris Wright, has announced plans to focus on expanding baseload and dispatchable power generation. This shift in priorities, outlined on January 5, 2025,...

T&D Trends

Utility News

Exelon Expands Data Center Load and PJM Capacity

In a rapidly evolving energy landscape, Exelon’s recent moves in the energy and data center markets signal a pivotal shift in how utilities are engaging with the intersection of technology, grid capacity, and sustainability. The company’s entry into data center load management and its...

Electrical Substations

Properly Grounded Substations

Adequate utility grounding improves power quality, but more importantly, it is essential for worker safety as well as public protection. Design is critical in maintaining a safe equipotential environment all around the substation.

Construction is important to accommodate fault currents without leaving the substation with dangerous potential gradients.

A tester must establish a sufficiently low resistance to remote earth so that operation remains within safe parameters. Similarly, safe step and touch potentials must be established for the protection of workers and public during fault conditions. Step potential is the distance between a person’s feet and touch potential is the voltage between the energized object and feet of the person.

ELECTRICAL PROPERTIES OF SOIL
Undoubtedly, grounding begins with the earth itself; that is to say, the electrical properties of soil and its ability to carry return current and disseminate fault currents. This property is known as resistivity.

Soil structure and...

Electrical Substations Articles

Physical Security & Monitoring

The Copper Theft Pandemic

Around the time of the financial crisis of 2008, precious metals pricing began to change drastically. Beginning in late 2007, a trend of price instability began to be seen for gold, silver, platinum, and (although not a precious metal in the traditional sense), copper. The price of all these metals...