Lamar repowering project's creative modeling of old and new wins Marmaduke award

Lamar Light and Power is a municipal utility that has been generating the south-eastern Colorado city's electricity since 1920. Rising natural gas and oil costs pushed LL&P to retire its steam plant five years ago and begin hunting for more economic power sources. The answer: repower the existing plant with a state-of-the-art coal-fired circulating fluidized-bed combustor and cross-connect old and new steam turbines. The $120 million project will stabilize the region's electricity rates for many years to come and is the winner of POWER's 2008 Marmaduke Award for excellence in O&M-named for Marmaduke Surfaceblow, the fictional marine engineer/plant troubleshooter par excellence.