POWER March 2012 - 53

OUTAGE MANAGEMENT
optimizing the operations and maintenance
of Southern Company's assets. " This approach
provides a structured way to effectively
ensure consistent application of cost
containment and process improvement best
practices across the fleet. This strategy has
resulted in a reduction of planned outage
days, improved contractor productivity, and
increased reliability.
For example, for contracting and procurement
purposes, the regional approach
allows the Southern Company fleet to leverage
its buying power and size. " In past
years, the cost of equipment and labor differed
from location to location, even with
the same vendors providing services at
several locations, " Flowers said. " At times,
however, the work performed was consistent,
but the price of labor and equipment
were not. " By pooling their efforts, Southern
Company's regional negotiators have
achieved more consistent pricing and contract
execution.
Likewise, savings have been realized
for the procurement of large pieces of
equipment through volume procurement
contracts. Better upfront project identification
and planning through the regional
structure have enabled such success.
Bottom-Line Advantages
" Effective outage planning is the most costeffective
way to run our business, " Flowers
said. " A well-managed planned outage ensures
that we are able to operate our units in
such a manner as to be able to satisfy customer
demand when needed, be reliable when in
service, and optimize costs to achieve reliability
targets. "
As a result of its consistently exceptional
reliability performance, Southern
Company is able to leverage both unit
availability and reliability to economically
commit and dispatch its fleet, which ultimately
translates into lower costs to its
customers and more market sales opportunities
for the company.
An Environmental Edge
Southern Company's outage planning and
management process has been instrumental
in the successful construction, maintenance,
and operation of its environmental control
equipment, Flowers said. The company's
outage management process fosters the correct
maintenance at optimal frequency to reduce
equipment down time, which enables
its fleet to meet or exceed all environmental
regulations.
The company has invested $8.1 billion
in environmental controls since 1990, and
management plans to invest at least an additional
$1.2 billion through 2013 to furMarch
2012 | POWER
ther reduce emissions of nitrogen oxides,
sulfur dioxide, and mercury. This significant
investment has almost doubled the
amount of equipment that the company's
fossil plants must maintain in order to
comply with environmental regulations.
Flowers emphasized that " certainly, the
traditional power plant that we are all familiar
with is changing. " Southern Company
expects that the amount and complexity
of equipment its fossil plants must maintain
and operate in order to comply with
changing environmental regulations will
increase in the future.
" However, by leveraging our outage
philosophy and regional maintenance approach,
and building on our employees'
commitment to superior performance, we
believe the Southern Company generating
fleet will continue to safely provide highly
reliable and affordable energy for our customers, "
Flowers said. ■
-Angela Neville, JD, is POWER's
senior editor.
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