POWER April 2023 - 21

GAS POWER
Cogentrix has a longstanding and
highly constructive relationship with Siemens
Energy, including several plants
that utilize Siemens Energy technology
and are serviced under Siemens Energy
LTSAs. Cogentrix was able to collaborate
with Siemens Energy to restructure the
Hamilton LTSAs and better define both
routine maintenance and unit upgrade
opportunities. The Patriot 10 rotor upgrade
was the first under the new agreement
and yielded a 30-MW improvement
in unit output. This rotor exchange and
unit upgrade was completed in the
spring of 2021. The remaining Hamilton
units are scheduled for the same rotor
exchange and upgrade in 2025 and 2026.
In addition to the unit maintenance
and improvement support, the restructured
LTSAs extended the commitment
of the Siemens Energy resident engineer.
This position has proven to be a
valuable communication tool between
Cogentrix, Patriot, Liberty, and Siemens
Energy. The resident engineer shares
time between the two facilities and can
respond to issues on-site with the full
resources of Siemens Energy, including
platform owners, engineers, and other
specialist employees, who are the SMEs
for these advanced machines.
Through the LTSAs, the Hamilton facilities
continue to have full access to the
Siemens Energy district service team,
sales staff, and PDC group to ensure
that all the engines in the portfolio are
running reliably and meeting their design
output. The plants are also involved with
the Siemens Energy Alpharetta group
for support of the T3000 distributed control
systems (DCSs) and have recently
entered a long-term Customer Service
Agreement that includes a DCS upgrade
to the latest version of the popular operating
system in 2024. This agreement
provides the team with 24-hour support
and access to Siemens Energy's controls
system experts, similar to the level of
support provided by the LTSAs. The relationship
between the Hamilton portfolio
and Siemens Energy has grown steadily
to become an important partnership on
key topics including training, O&M, and
capital improvements.
Improved and Sustained Performance
In addition to taking over O&M and asset
management responsibilities, the Cogentrix
team also took over all aspects of
commercial management for the Hamilton
portfolio. This includes daily power and gas
scheduling, hedging, capacity supply obligation
management, and risk monitoring.
April 2023 | POWER
Since Cogentrix assumed its O&M
and energy management responsibilities,
the plants have consistently
achieved capacity factors near 90% (Figures
3 and 4) and have seen a significant
improvement in financial performance.
General Managers Sean Davis (Patriot)
and Brian Zechman (Liberty) have been
at the forefront of these efforts and are
extremely proud of their teams and the
work that has been completed in just a
few short years.
" Our team has grown in respect and
trust of one another, " Zechman said.
" Mutual respect and trust are two key ingredients
in enabling our team to achieve
goals aligned to a vision that moves us
forward together and yields success. "
Building trust is also a key element in
the Cogentrix model. The team extends
beyond the plant fence lines, and the
company believes employees need to
see that in order to gain trust in the goals
and expectations established. Cogentrix
employees are encouraged to bring
ideas to the table, and the company
trusts them to have the capabilities and
know-how to achieve measurable performance
improvements. The general managers
work to empower their employees
to follow through on ideas with innovative
solutions as well as simple fixes to
long-term problems. This has fostered a
long track record of internal promotions
at the plant and corporate levels.
" Cogentrix has provided the Hamilton
facilities with resources not previously
available. These resources have included
engineering, field support, and additional
financing that has allowed both facilities
to address equipment issues and pursue
both safety and reliability improvements, "
said Davis.
The Cogentrix team has completed
many milestones since 2020. The integration
of the plant staff, process reviews
and implementation, and changes
in overall operations philosophy have
changed the day-to-day routines of all
the site employees. These efforts have
helped the Hamilton portfolio achieve
industry-leading operating and reliability
metrics over the past several years.
" I believe both Liberty and Patriot are
on course to establishing themselves as
the fleet leaders within Cogentrix and
well-positioned to challenge others within
the industry on safety, reliability, and
performance, " said Davis. ■
-Mike Straubmuller is vice president of
Operations with Cogentrix Energy Power
Management LLC. Several members of the
Hamilton team contributed to this article.
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POWER April 2023

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