Owner/Operator: Alliant Energy
Top Plant: Alliant Energy’s Dubuque Generating Station is a fine example of why small doesn’t mean insignificant in the power generation industry. This winner of the EUCG Best Performer award in the small plant category shows that its operating excellence towers over that of many larger and much newer coal-fired power plants.
POWER has been privileged to report on the excellent benchmarking studies conducted by the EUCG’s Fossil Productivity Committee over the past several years. Another important function of the committee is to recognize its members’ top-rated plants with suitable awards at the group’s biannual meetings. The fall meeting recognizes members’ best-performing large (>250 MW) and small (<250 MW) coal-fired plants during the previous year. We reported on Alliant Energy’s Lansing and Edgewater Generating Stations’ sweep of the two awards, respectively, in the February 2008 issue of
POWER. The spring meeting looks beyond a plant’s single good year to sustained operating excellence over a five-year period. Alliant Energy scored a hat trick when its Dubuque Generating Station (DGS) took those five-year honors in the small coal-fired plant division at the April 2008 meeting in San Antonio, repeating its win two years earlier. (The best performer in the large coal division is also profiled, see Cover Story,
"J.K. Spruce Power Plant, Unit 1, San Antonio, Texas".)
Details of the EUCG’s performance- and cost data-driven selection process were thoroughly discussed in our earlier article, with one exception: Instead of using the equivalent unplanned outage factor, the five-year evaluation uses the equivalent forced outage rate (EFOR). For award purposes, the EFOR is defined as forced outage hours, plus equivalent forced derated hours divided by the sum of service hours, plus forced outage hours, plus equivalent forced derated hours during reserve shutdown.
Costs included in the analysis are operating and maintenance (O&M) costs (excluding large leases), measured in $/MWh. Finally, the methodology dampens variances in net generation, capacity factor, rating, or number of units so that all entrants are gauged against a common norm. Individual plants are then compared against this norm, and the best plant takes home a trophy. The 2008 award was granted based on data reported by more than 80 plants from 2002 to 2006.
This data-driven approach to an awards program is appropriate in a market where the best performers make money and the also-rans tend to their cold iron. However, excellence in plant operations can’t be explained by just a few summary stats or graphs. Rather, it derives from the good work of a well-led, dedicated staff that takes pride in their plant’s success.
Identifying how a plant achieved great numbers also requires understanding the plant design, because the equipment operated often defines the challenges faced by the operating staff. It’s also much more interesting than dry statistics alone.
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