Traditionally, the black-startup manoeuvre is accomplished by hydro-stations or gas turbines. During the last ten years, some of the Italian thermoelectric plants have been repowered by topping the existing steam sections with gas turbines. It has been considered relevant to investigate the "early restoration" capabilities of one of these repowered plants, namely the one at Rossano Calabro (Italy) belonging to the southern (and more stretched) part of the ENEL's power system. For this purpose a simulator has been built using the Lego modular code and has been validated by means of certain available field measurements at the power station. The aim was to assess some power plant control system requirements in order to obtain the best plant response during the black-startup manoeuvre. The paper describes the simulator, the control system modifications and some simulation results outlining the efficiency of a repowered station to re-energise part of the high-voltage transmission network. Copyright (C) 2000 IFAC.