POWER Awards

For more than four decades, POWER magazine has honored the top performers in the electricity-generating industry with annual power plant awards. If your plant has distinguished itself by innovative design or engineering upgrades, producing power more reliably or economically than comparable plants, or demonstrating a new generation or environmental controls technology, don’t miss the opportunity to see your plant profiled in POWER. We also offer awards for noteworthy smart grid, water, hydrogen, distributed energy, and commercial and industrial generation projects.

Award winners will be selected by the editors of POWER based on nominations submitted by you and your industry peers—suppliers, designers, constructors, and operators of power plants. Don’t be shy about nominating your plant; many of our past winners were nominated by plant staff. If your project is selected as an award winner, a POWER editor will contact you to develop an article that will be published in POWER to inform the rest of the industry of your achievement. Additionally, physical awards will be given out to all winners who send representatives to our Experience POWER event, which will be held October 29–31, 2025, in Denver, Colorado.

The Plant of the Year Award winner and winners of the Reinvention, Water, and Hydrogen Awards will be profiled in the July issue of POWER in 2025. The Distributed Energy, Smart Grid, and Commercial & Industrial Generation awards will be recognized in August. Top Plant Award winners in the Renewable, Gas-Fired, and Nuclear categories will be profiled in the September, October, and December issues, respectively.

The application deadline for this year’s awards is March 14, 2025. Follow the links below to download the appropriate nomination forms. All nominated projects should be in commercial operation by the nomination deadline of March 14, 2025. For information on award criteria, please scroll down.

Plant of the Year

The Plant of the Year award is given to a power plant that leads our industry in the successful deployment of advanced technology and maximizes efficiency while minimizing environmental impact. Historically, this award has been presented to a plant that entered commercial service within the past one to two years. See a list of previous Plant of the Year winners.

Reinvention Award (Previously Marmaduke Award)

The Reinvention Award recognizes excellence in creative problem-solving that gives a power plant of any type a new life or a new role. Prior winners include an operating combined cycle plant that was moved from one multi-unit plant to another multi-unit plant, a coal-fired plant that was repowered with a circulating fluidized bed (CFB) boiler burning wood, and a district heating plant that was repowered with new, high-efficiency gas turbines. See a list of previous Reinvention Award winners.

Smart Grid Award

2011 was the inaugural year for the POWER Smart Grid Award. Although the magazine has traditionally focused on the supply end of the power industry, the business and technology of power generation is becoming increasingly affected by smart grid developments that touch the entire power supply and delivery chain. This award recognizes outstanding smart grid projects, anywhere in the world, of any scale, that demonstrate the benefits of new data-rich technologies to power generators, distribution utilities, and customers. See a list of previous Smart Grid Award winners.

Water Award

Introduced in 2014, the Water Award goes to a water-related project at a power plant anywhere in the world that demonstrates leadership in the management of water and/or wastewater streams. Winning projects have successfully implemented innovative, leading-edge approaches to water stewardship, water quality, water availability, or wastewater-handling issues. Although technology may be involved, the award is not specifically for a new commercially available technology. Rather, the award recognizes creative problem-solving that results in water management strategies that may serve as models for other plants. See a list of previous Water Award winners.

Commercial & Industrial Generation Award

A new award beginning in 2017, the C&I Generation Award recognizes innovative projects representing advances in smaller generation serving a single customer or a restricted customer base. This award is intended to recognize excellence in on-site, self-generation (of electricity and/or thermal energy) facilities that are not primarily selling into a wholesale market. Both new and substantial upgrade projects are eligible. Winners have demonstrated creative approaches to solving problems and meeting the unique needs of this growing generation sector. Generation projects using any technology or fuel (or any combination of technologies) can qualify, but larger projects (especially large captive power plants) are more likely to be considered under their specific generation type in our Top Plants category. See a list of previous Commercial & Industrial Generation Award winners.

Distributed Energy Award

First awarded in 2018, the Distributed Energy Award is given to projects that creatively implement reliable and sustainable power solutions utilizing distributed energy technology. Projects that incorporate renewables, energy storage, microgrids, and combined heat and power, among other options, to create successful real-world applications while meeting business and financial goals are excellent candidates for the award. See a list of previous Distributed Energy Award winners.

Hydrogen Award

Hydrogen is expected to play a large role in the decarbonization of the power grid, as well as other energy-intensive industries. With an understanding that hydrogen could be vitally important to the world’s future, POWER began recognizing innovative hydrogen-related projects with a new award in 2022. The Hydrogen Award is given to projects that move the needle toward a hydrogen-based economy. Projects that produce or use hydrogen in innovative and efficient ways or utilize new technology to incorporate hydrogen into successful energy-related applications are a great fit for POWER’s latest award. See a list of previous Hydrogen Award winners.

Transmission & Distribution (T&D) Award

Transmission & Distribution became part of POWER’s awards program in 2024. The T&D Award honors companies that have implemented groundbreaking projects to enhance grid reliability, efficiency, and sustainability. This prestigious accolade recognizes forward-thinking initiatives that leverage cutting-edge technologies and novel approaches to address the evolving challenges of modern power systems. See a list of previous T&D Award winners.

Top Plants

Top Plant winners are profiled annually in these issues of POWER:

    • Renewable projects in September
    • Natural gas-fired projects in October
    • Nuclear projects in December

Top Plants are interesting, important, innovative projects. Many Top Plants are recently commissioned facilities that exhibit some unique design or technology that will be of general interest to the power industry. They also can include plants that have distinguished themselves as industry leaders for significant improvements made to their equipment, operations, staffing, or operating record to emerge from an “also ran” to top of the class in performance. See a list of recent Top Plant Award winners.