Sayano-Shushenskaya Hydro Power Plant Disaster
Company Background
Sayano -- Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station is geographically located on the Yenisei River, near Sayanogorsk in Khakassia, Russia. It was the largest hydro electrical power plant in Russian and sixth largest hydro electrical power station in the world, until the accident has occurred. The plant was operated by RusHydro, which was established in December 2004 during Russia's privatization movement, however about 60% of its shares are owned by Russian government. The milestone of RusHydro operation was that it has recorded the satiation's all-time highest electricity output in 24 hours (RusHydro, July 2009). RusHydro has 55 hydro plants with the installed capacity of 25.4 GW. The annual energy generation recorded by Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station was about 23.4 TWh, which was almost one-quarter of that produced by RusHydro's resources for the Unified Energy Systems of Russia and Siberia. The major consumer of the plant was United company Rusal's aluminum smelters, that consumes about 70% production of RusHydro. The United Company Rusal's aluminum smelter produces about 12% of the world's aluminum (Boyko, A. & Popov, S. 2010)
Sayano -- Shushenskaya hydroelectric power disaster and its causes
The 2009 Sayano -- Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station accident occurred on 17 August 2009, when turbine 2 of the Sayano -- Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station was viciously burst. The damages were, turbine hall and engine room were flooded, the ceiling of the turbine hall collapsed, 9 of 10 turbines were destroyed, and total of 75 people were killed in this accident. The operational consequences were, the entire plant output capacity, adding up to be 6,400 MW and a considerable share of the supply to the local market, was lost, leading to widespread power failure in the local area, and compelling all major users like aluminum smelters to change to diesel generators. An official report on the accident was issued on 4 October 2009.
The disaster was felt initially with the loud noise from turbine 2. The turbine cover shot up and the rotor that weighs around 920 tones also shot out of its seat. This has made water to rush out from the cavity of the turbine into the machinery hall. Consequently the machinery hall was flooded. The disturbance in the plant has alerted the alarm received at the power station's main control panel. The failure of power had made total blackout in the premises (Izvestia, 2009). The rescue majors taken during the incident was that the steel gates to water intake pipes of turbines were manually closed, emergency diesel generator was started and the opening of spillway gates of the dam (RusHydro (August 2009). It was found that 75 people had died during this incident. (ITAR-TASS, September 2009)
Cause of accident
The accident was fundamentally caused by the turbine vibrations that had led to the serious damage of the turbine 2 and its cover. The precise cause of this vibration was investigated as most likely to be due to the huge volume of water from the Yenisei River flooded the turbine room thus causing one of the transformer explosion and widespread damage to all ten turbines. It was observed during the investigation that min 6 nuts were missing from the bolts securing the turbine cover. However, industry has viewed the cause of this accident as an inaccurate start-up process of the turbine that has consequently caused the hydraulic pressure surge. The vibration in turbine 2 was experienced since 10 years and was well-known by the company. It is also commented by industry specialist that its common practice in the industry to increase profit by reducing maintenance cost, investment on safety measures and training cost. To hide their mismanagement and ignored response on the maintenance of the plant, vibration in the turbine 2 was ignored by the company personnel and they have underestimated the adverse effects of its damage (Expert online, 2009).
According to Alexander Toloshinov, the former director general of the plant, the accident was due to the manufacturing defect in the turbine. According to him the construction of the turbine blades for such type of turbine is not reliable and possesses the risk of breaking down during operation. RusHydro has disapproved all the accusation that the dam outflow had overwhelmed the machinery hall thus leading to the damage of turbine 2. The management had tried to convince by saying that the dam outflow is seasonal and the displacement between the anchor legs and machinery hall has never exceeded 2.3 mm which is quite less than the width between them. Therefore it was not possible for damn to overwhelm the machinery hall. News has also reported the rebel party in Chechnya to be responsible for the blast as a confrontation on economic war on Russia. However they were...
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