News Detail
NAES Plants Recognized with 2008 Best Practices Awards
05/12/2008 - The need to continually improve the performance of their facilities is one of the biggest challenges facing owners and operators of gas turbine-based power plants today. A significant component of attaining continuous improvement at many plants is the employment of Best Practices. Best Practices are those methods, processes, or procedures that can be employed to support the attainment of top performance on a predictable and repeatable basis.
The Best Practices Awards program was created and is managed by the Combined Cycle Journal to recognize the valuable contributions made by plant staffs to improve the performance of their facilities. Entries in Management, Environmental Stewardship, Design, Safety, and O&M are judged by members of the CTOTF Leadership Committee annually. Presentation of the 2008 awards took place at a special luncheon at the spring CTOTF Turbine Users Forum in Savannah on March 17. NAES took home five awards in the two levels of achievement: Best Practices and The Best of the Best.
The Best of the Best in Safety was awarded to the Pleasants Energy plant for its spill-response trailer. The design and construction of an emergency spill-response trailer fully equipped with features that include a site-remote command center enables the plant staff to evaluate, characterize, contain, clean up, remove and dispose of any hazardous material incident 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. With the trailer on site, Pleasants Energy has the ability to handle a variety of spills in compliance with federal, state and local regulations. Pleasants’ Plant Manager, Matthew Denver, and its O&M Manager, Steven Greene, were instrumental in the development and implementation of the trailer.
The Calgary Energy Centre took home a Best Practices award in Safety for its plant safety, health and environmental (SHE) performance index. The index uses a spreadsheet to list all of the activities expected to be completed each month, from safety inspections to monitoring hazardous waste, to first-aid incidents. The spreadsheet tracks the completed items and calculates an overall performance percentage for each month and year-to-date. The SHE performance index is posted monthly for all employees to view their progress. Calgary’s Plant Manager, Roy Hanson, was instrumental in the development of the index.
Another Best Practices award in Safety went to the Green Country Energy plant for its “Do Everything Right All the Time†safety goal. The Green Country Energy plant staff prides itself on its excellent safety performance. Since the initial staffing of the plant in 2000, there have been no lost-time accidents and only one minor injury accident in 500,000 work hours. Key to this impressive record is a hands-on Safety Committee, which oversees safety policies and procedures. While perfection is difficult to achieve, plant management has improved its outlook on safety issues, which assists in increasing employee safety awareness and knowledge of safety regulations. Green Country Energy is recognized by NAES for superior safety performance with receipt of the 2006 PPO Annual Safety Award. Green Country’s Plant Manager Rick Shackelford, and its Safety Committee comprised of Carol Wilson, Allen Meyer, Danny Parish, Phil Pace, Greg Holler, David McGuire, Ewing Jackson, Jim Little, Derek Hale, and Linne Rollins, were key in achieving this performance goal.
The Pleasants Energy plant was awarded a Best Practices award in Operation and Maintenance for the replacement of bolts on liquid-fuel purge valves to improve starting reliability. Research identified a simple, cost-effective solution: use high-temperature removable Loctite and lock washers to secure the bolts in place and prevent loosening. This simple, low-cost improvement was a great influence in the plant’s ability to achieve 100 percent starting reliability in 2007.
The Pleasants Energy plant was awarded a second Best Practices award in Operation and Maintenance for its CEMS calibration gas systems protection shelter. To protect calibration-gas cylinders, pressure regulators and manifold assemblies an outside shelter was constructed and secured to the CEMS building. The lamps installed inside the shelter supply both light and enough heat to keep temperatures inside above freezing. Plant Manager Matthew Denver, O&M Manager Steven Greene and Combustion Turbine Specialists Gary Vierling Jr., Russ Ferrell, Tommy Dodge, and Ricky Roberts were key to the research and implementation of both projects.
