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Wärtsilä to Supply the Engineering and Equipment to East Kentucky Power Cooperative for 217-MW Power Plant

LCG, August 27, 2025--Wärtsilä Energy announced yesterday an agreement with East Kentucky Power Cooperative (EKPC) to supply the engineering and equipment for a 217-MW power plant to be constructed in Liberty, Kentucky. The Wärtsilä equipment is scheduled for delivery in mid-2027, and the plant is expected to be commissioned in early 2028.

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TerraPower, Utah's Office of Energy Development, and Flagship Companies Sign MOU to Identify Sites for Advanced Nuclear Reactors

LCG, August 25, 2025--The Utah Office of Energy Development (OED), TerraPower and Flagship Companies announced today the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to explore the potential siting of a Natrium® nuclear reactor and energy storage plant in Utah. The MOU establishes a shared commitment to support advanced nuclear technologies to build Utah’s energy future and to prioritize reliability, economic growth and energy abundance.

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Industry News

Kiwi Mercury Energy to Get into Gas

LCG, Dec. 18, 2001--New Zealand electric utility Mercury Energy Ltd. is moving into the natural gas retail market and will start selling gas to many of its Auckland customers from March, the New Zealand Herald reported this morning.

John Foote, Mercury's general manager, told the paper that customers would have the option of paying for both electricity and gas on the same bill. The move would put Mercury, which is now a unit of the state-owned enterprise Mighty River Power, into direct competition with Contact Energy, also a gas and electricity retailer.

Mercury Energy may be remembered as the electric distribution company that, for lack of preventive maintenance, allowed electric transmission into Auckland's central business district to fail on Feb. 19, 1998. More than a month later, the company proudly announced "The power crisis is over, normal power is up and running in Auckland's CBD."

Then the lights went out again.

This latest move would involve the acquisition by Mercury of Wanganui Gas, which supplies gas to big commercial users in Auckland. That company's general manager, Trevor Goodwin, said the small firm was not interested in selling gas directly to Auckland residential customers.

"We really just want to sell more gas," he said. "We're not megalomaniacs, we're not trying to have the largest customer base in the country, we just want to shift more gas."

The service territory in which Mercury will initially sell gas has about 40,000 gas users, almost all buying from Contact Energy. The company will aim to win over Contact gas customers who already buy electricity from Mercury.

"We plan this to be a low-hassle, good-service option, so we'll be moving at a pace to ensure that this service can be maintained," said Foote. "Ultimately, we want to be able to offer these sorts of things wherever the Mercury brand is but, for the moment, one step at a time."

Selling Mercury as a "low-hassle, good-service" energy provider would seem to require a customer base having collectively a short memory.

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