){kind=logo}
)
){kind=logo}
| Emerging technologies matter when they solve real operational or commercial problems, not when they remain stuck in pilot mode. This topic highlights new tools, systems and approaches with potential relevance to generation development, plant operations, maintenance, flexibility and performance. The focus is on early lessons, adoption barriers, implementation risk and where new technologies may offer measurable value to utilities, power producers and industrial users.
|
Emerging Tech Educational Opportunities
10:15 AM
-
Battery storage at four hours dominated the last build cycle. The next reliability gap requires eight hours and beyond, and a range of technologies — liquid CO₂ systems, pumped thermal storage, solid …
11:15 AM
-
The proliferation of distributed batteries, behind-the-meter assets and aggregated virtual power plants is reshaping how grid operators think about flexibility. This series of presentations covers ope …
1:30 PM
-
Fusion energy is moving from laboratory demonstration toward the early stages of commercial project development. For utilities, IPPs, and investors planning resource portfolios beyond 2035, the questi …Chairperson
-
Enhanced geothermal systems are moving from research programs to operating projects, and the timeline to commercial scale is compressing. This panel brings together subsurface technology developers, a …
2:30 PM
-
Geothermal offers firm, carbon-free capacity. Getting there requires navigating a set of execution risks that early projects are now quantifying in practice. This session examines geothermal from the …
-
As inverter-based resources displace synchronous generation, the inertia and reactive power that large rotating machines provided are declining faster than most grid operators planned for. Synchronous …
-
Executive Order 14301 set a target for at least three advanced reactors to achieve criticality by July 4, 2026. Four met the deadline, with a fifth following shortly after, marking the most concentrat …Chairperson
10:15 AM
-
An accelerating retirement wave in plant operations is removing institutional knowledge faster than conventional training programs can replace it. In high-consequence environments, including outage wo …
-
The electric sector is entering a new cyber-physical risk era. Generation, transmission, distribution, substations, distributed energy resources, data centers, private generation, vendors, cloud platf …
1:30 PM
-
Post-combustion carbon capture is increasingly relevant to utilities and IPPs managing emissions compliance on existing thermal assets, but the integration questions, energy demand, solvent performanc …
2:30 PM
-
On-site generation at data center campuses is growing faster than the decarbonization frameworks designed to govern it. Diesel backup conflicts with emissions targets. Natural gas prime power triggers …
-
As power and industrial operators face increasing pressure to decarbonize, many carbon capture systems today are still difficult to deploy in practice due to operational complexity, energy penalties, …
9:30 AM
-
Advanced nuclear is moving from concept to hardware. BWXT Advanced Technologies began production of the Project Pele transportable reactor in July 2025, delivered TRISO fuel to Idaho National Laborato …
10:30 AM
-
Supercritical CO₂ power cycles have been in development for two decades. They are now approaching commercial deployment, and the applications relevant to the POWERGEN audience are specific: gas turbin …
-
A combined-cycle plant ordered today will operate in a grid that looks materially different by the time it reaches its mid-life maintenance window. Designing for that reality, rather than for current …
11:30 AM
-
AI data centers have more pressure on timelines than any industrial buildout in history. At the same time, gas turbine lead times are a half-decade long, new transmission seems untenable, and it is ha …Chairperson
-
The U.S. has more than 134 GW of installed simple-cycle gas turbine capacity. Most of it was never paired with a steam bottoming cycle for straightforward reasons: high capital cost, large footprint, …
Other Emerging Tech News
Visit Our Official Media Partner, Factor This Power Engineering, for more Emerging Tech News
Army offers up underutilized military land to private developers for new power generation and storage
The U.S. Army selected three private developers, including Ameresco, Indelible-Bloom, and Frontier Power USA, to build power generation projects on military bases, enhancing energy resilience.
September 25, 2026
Blue Energy files first NRC application for Texas gas-to-nuclear project
Blue Energy has filed the first portion of its NRC construction permit application for a first-of-its-kind gas-to-nuclear power plant in Port of Victoria, Texas. The project would pair GE Vernova gas turbines with BWRX-300 small modular reactors in a phased approach designed to accelerate nuclear deployment.
September 24, 2026
