Improving Fossil Plant Cost and Reliability

ScottMadden, Inc. - 08.31.2010

ScottMadden – a leading North American energy consulting firm – has introduced a new fossil plant benchmarking tool that provides actionable insights, not just the typical benchmarking “report card.” Jere (“Jake”) Jacobi, ScottMadden partner, said, “Most benchmarking just tells you how you are doing. Our method crystallizes the most promising opportunities to do better.”

The ScottMadden reliability and cost benchmarking methodology has three objectives:

• Provide an externally based benchmark reference point of “what good is” to inform target setting by identifying and quantifying top-quartile performance

• Identify actionable gaps and provide diagnostic information to set the stage for plants to improve performance

• Transfer knowledge to our clients about benchmarking methods, tools, and techniques and set the stage for them to use this information to produce additional insights

ScottMadden has assisted companies in appraising and improving fossil plant operating effectiveness for decades. Jacobi said, “In the latest release of our benchmarking methodology, we updated our product support with an interactive Excel-based tool. It provides multiple ways to examine pertinent cost and reliability data.” Quentin Watkins, ScottMadden benchmarking manager, said, “Plant managers and others can use this new tool to explore the benchmarking data, combine it with their working knowledge of the plant, and develop even more insights and improvement opportunities.”

Watkins went on to say, “A key part of our method is the care with which we form like-in-kind peer groups. Fossil units are all different, so it’s important to develop peer groups that provide a sound and basis for comparison. We use multiple databases, first-hand knowledge of plants, and years of project experience to ensure that the peer groups are truly like-in-kind, and will produce valuable insights leading to improved performance.”

For nearly 30 years, ScottMadden has been a leader in energy consulting serving more than 200 energy organizations, including 90% of the top 20 utilities, and completed thousands of projects. We are very active in fossil generation strategy, operations, maintenance and performance improvement. For more information, visit www.scottmadden.com.

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