Lansing—big on performance
When one plant wins a performance award multiple times, it reflects well on plant management and staff (Figure 3). When multiple plants from the same company win the same EUCG annual Best Performer Small Coal award four years running, it not only reflects well on the winning plants but also on the entire corporation.
3. The power of teamwork. The staff of the Lansing Generating Station. Courtesy: Alliant Energy
Lansing Generating Station, located south of the Minnesota border in Iowa, is the fourth in a succession of Alliant Energy Iowa plants to take top honors in the small plant category. In 2006, Alliant Energy’s Sixth Street Generating station in Cedar Rapids took the title. In 2005, the award went to Alliant’s Dubuque Generating Station. The M.L. Kapp Generating Station in Clinton started the winning streak in 2004.
A staff of 51 is responsible for operation and maintenance of the three-unit Lansing Generating Station. Unit 2, commissioned in 1948, is a 15-MW unit. Unit 3, added in 1954, is a 38-MW unit, and the 275-MW Unit 4 was commissioned in 1977. Unit 1 was retired in 2004. Units 2 and 3 boilers and Units 2 and 3 turbines are on a common 850-psi header, allowing operation of boilers and turbines in any combination.
Units 3 and 4 run continuously throughout the year, so the statistics presented to the EUCG came from those units. Unit 2, with boilers 1 and 2, is usually run only during peak periods in the summer months. Unit 4 burns approximately 2,800 tons of Powder River Basin (PRB) coal each day, while Unit 3 burns a blend of high-Btu and PRB coals. Ingram Barge Co. makes about four barge deliveries of coal to Lansing daily while the Mississippi River is open, and each barge carries approximately 1,500 tons of fuel. Fuel deliveries are highly seasonal: PRB coal is brought by train to southeastern Iowa and then barged to the plant, usually between April 1 and November 1. The river freezes over during the winter months, so all deliveries have to be planned well in advance.
Lansing, coal-constrained during the winter, also operates in a transmission-congested region of Iowa. Unit 3 is typically operated in baseload mode, and Unit 4 operates on automatic generation control and is baseloaded daily, typically from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., when demand drops to about 140 MW, every day of the week.
Marty Burkhardt, Lansing’s operations manager, provided some insight into his plant’s excellent operations and safety record. He is especially proud of the plant’s strong safety committee that continually communicates with every staff member the importance of a safe working environment. The results speak volumes: the plant recently completed one million man-hours without a lost-time accident. For the small staff at Lansing, that record started in February 1999 and continues today.
Proud staff. Burkhardt also noted that all members of the plant staff have deep pride in their jobs and are dedicated to securing the plant’s future success. The plant is located in a remote, rural area of the state and is a mainstay in the community. (See sidebar.)
Location hasn’t protected the plant from the challenges of an aging workforce; a large number of staff members are eligible to retire in the next five years. The plant, with the strong support of the IBEW local, has invested in an active apprenticeship program that will maintain a well-trained workforce.
Empowered staff. The plant has very strong leaders within the hourly ranks who are involved in all significant plant initiatives. For example, most new craft and operations employees are local residents who are hired after a rigorous assessment of their skills, knowledge, and abilities. When more-senior positions are being filled, hourly and bargaining unit employees serve as members of the hiring committee to ensure that new employees not only have the requisite skills but also fit the plant culture (Figure 6).
6. Culture of success. Stan Schwartzhoff at the controls of Lansing Generating Station. Courtesy: Alliant Energy
Employees are also involved in determining how limited capital and O&M dollars are invested in their plant to support plant reliability goals. Who better to determine the timing of these expenditures than those who have to grapple with problems every day?
The operations organization is empowered as few other plant staffs are. The plant has no shift supervisors and no first-line supervisors for technicians or maintenance workers. Of the 50-plus staff members, only six are salaried. Certainly, the small staff makes this option more attractive, but there is a wide gap between the concept of an empowered workforce and actually fitting together a jigsaw puzzle of people with different technical skills, personalities, and self-motivation. Lansing has successfully solved this puzzle for the past five years.
Active communication among staff members continues to be seen as essential for a smoothly operating plant. Every day begins with a coordination meeting involving the chief plant operator, maintenance foreman, and coal yard foreman, who plan the day’s events. Minor outages are supported by plant staff, although boiler welds require contractor support.
The predictive maintenance program is a shared responsibility between the operations and maintenance staffs. The program’s scope is typical for most plants: predictive, vibration trending, thermography, lube oil analysis, and the like. The plant engineer receives the data and makes an evaluation that is fed back to the maintenance planner, who schedules repairs. The plant also has a full-time water chemistry technician to keep an eye on the plant’s working fluids; that person’s collateral duties include preparing the inevitable list of environmental reports for the plant manager’s signature.
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