Powerplant Productivity Improvement Study: project summary report

Technical Report · Fri Dec 21 04:00:00 EST 1979

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/5273149· OSTI ID:5273149

Key findings from the Illinois Powerplant Productivity Improvement Study are: (1) the historic performance (equivalent availability) of large generating units in Illinois is below national average performance; (2) cost-effective opportunities to improve performance exist, and utilities pursue many of these; (3) there are no strong regulatory disincentives to the undertaking of productivity improvement projects, but no strong incentives either; (4) current utility practices, procedures, and management philosophy toward improved productivity are being strengthened; (5) areas in which immediate attention is warranted include application of reliability engineering tools to the analysis of powerplant availability and more vigorous pursuit of opportunities for performance improvements; (6) DOE systematic methodology for analysis of productivity improvement projects was demonstrated at three units and found to be useful; (7) the potential for improved productivity was estimated to be of the order of 2% in planned and forced outage rates; (8) if a 5% improvement were to be attained, cumulative (through 1990) constant-dollar benefits would be approximately $500 million; (9) formula regulatory incentive mechanisms are presently in a developmental or experimental phase, but adoption by the State of Illinois does not appear warranted at this time; and (10) the Illinois Commerce Commission can encourage improved productivity by explicitly considering recent unit performance during normal rate-case proceedings.

• Research Organization: Illinois Commerce Commission, Springfield (USA)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: FC01-77RG08138
• OSTI ID: 5273149
• Report Number(s): CONS-8138-T6
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

20 FOSSIL-FUELED POWER PLANTS
200106 -- Fossil-Fueled Power Plants-- Economics
29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
296001* -- Energy Planning & Policy-- Electric Power Generation-- (-1989)
CAPACITY
DATA
DATA COMPILATION
ECONOMIC IMPACT
GREAT LAKES REGION
ILLINOIS
INFORMATION
NORTH AMERICA
NUMERICAL DATA
PERFORMANCE
POWER PLANTS
PRODUCTIVITY
RATE STRUCTURE
RECOMMENDATIONS
REGULATIONS
RELIABILITY
USA