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2008 Best Practices Awards Announced by Combined Cycle Journal

SAVANNAH, Ga., March 17 PRNewswire — Combined Cycle Journal's 2008 Best Practices Awards were announced today at the Combustion Turbine Operations Task Force's Turbine Users Forum in Savannah, Georgia. Since 2004, the awards have recognized the contributions made by plant staff, headquarters engineering, and asset-management personnel to the implementation of Best Practices for continual performance improvements at gas-turbine-based powerplants. Best Practices represent reliable methods and procedures that enable plants to increase efficiency and availability and to decrease environmental impact and the cost of electricity production on a predictable and repeatable basis. The 2008 award winners excelled in the categories of Management, Environmental Stewardship, Design, Safety, and Operation & Maintenance (O&M).

"In order for gas-turbine-based powerplants to compete in a deregulated and increasingly competitive market, they must continually look for ways to increase reliability and availability, boost efficiency, reduce air and water emissions, and improve safety," Robert Schwieger, Editor and Publisher of Combined Cycle Journal, said. "This year's award winners exemplify the type of innovative thinking that is necessary to compete and succeed in today's market."

Entries were judged by members of the CTOTF Leadership Committee, chaired by John Lovelace of Arizona Public Service Co., and the winners were divided into two levels: Best Practices and The Best of the Best. Best of the Best winners were recognized for superior contributions to industry Best Practices and included:

— For Management: Tennessee Valley Authority. Using a life-cycle model developed for each gas turbine in the fleet, senior management are able to quickly evaluate the cost impacts of unexpected repairs/replacements associated with a forced outage. — For Environmental Stewardship: PALOMAR ENERGY CENTER, San Diego Gas & Electric. With early ammonia injection and proprietary software to more tightly control the startup process, emissions of NOx and CO were reduced by more than two-thirds on starts following an overnight shutdown. — For Design: PORT WESTWARD GENERATING STATION, Portland General Electric Co. For pioneering the implementation of digital bus technology in powerplants to potentially reduce the cost and construction time of new combined-cycle plants, and to allow remote calibration and troubleshooting of plant instrumentation. — For Safety: PLEASANTS ENERGY LLC, owned by Tenaska Inc., operated by North American Energy Services. Emergency spill-response trailer staffed by well-trained, qualified individuals is available for rapid deployment 24/7 to assist in the evaluation, characterization, cleanup, removal, and disposal of any hazardous-material incident. — For Operation and Maintenance: KLAMATH COGENERATION PLANT, owned by City of Klamath Falls, Ore, and operated by Pacific Klamath Energy Inc. By modifying control logic to warn of an icing condition and by installing cameras at the engine air inlet for visual confirmation, the potential for damage caused by ice formation in the gas-turbine bellmouth area and its ingestion by the compressor was affordably mitigated. — For Operation and Maintenance: TENASKA LINDSAY HILL GENERATING STATION, Tenaska Alabama Partners LP. New procedures developed by plant staff reduced steam-turbine cold-start times by an hour or more below the fleet average while maintaining stresses at — or less than — 100% of the manufacturer's limits for both the HP and reheat sections of the machine.

A complete description of award winning plants, including plant profiles, project reviews and contact information, will appear in the upcoming issue of Combined Cycle Journal.

About Combined Cycle Journal

Combined Cycle Journal, the independent voice of the gas-turbine generation sector, is published by PSI Media Inc, a Pearl Street company. Combined Cycle Journal provides owners and operators unparalleled coverage of the operations and maintenance issues important to the industry and reports on topics of interest to user groups such as Frame6, 7EA, CTOTF, HRSG, 251, 501G, 501D5/D5A, 501F, V, Western Turbine, and Ovation/WDPF. Combined Cycle Journal also publishes an annual Directory of Products and Services as well as an Outage Handbook.

For more information, visit http://www.combinedcyclejournal.com and http://www.psimedia.info. CONTACT Robert G. Schwieger bob@psimedia.info 702-869-4739

SOURCE Combined Cycle Journal

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