Seven Charged in Siberian Hydropower Plant Accident
The Russian Investigative Committee has completed a probe into the August 2009 accident at the Sayano-Shushenskaya Hydro Power Plant in Siberia that killed 75 people. The committee has charged seven people—including the plant’s former head, Nikolai Nevolko, his deputies, and the plant’s former chief engineer, Andrei Mitrofanov—for violating safety rules. If found guilty, the officials could face five years in jail.
On Aug. 17, 2009, an explosion at the giant 10-turbine hydroelectric station destroyed Units 2, 7, and 9, and seriously damaged Units 1 and 3. (For details of the event, see “Investigating the Sayano-Shushenskaya Hydro Power Plant Disaster” in our December 2010 issue or in the archives at https://www.powermag.com.) The plant’s other five units were also damaged.
In an October 2009 report that investigated what caused the catastrophe at the 6,400-MW hydroelectric plant, Russian industrial safety regulator Rostekhnadzor cited a number of contributing causes, including design, operation, and repair shortcomings. It also pointed a finger at six high-ranking Russian officials—including former electricity monopoly chief Anatoly Chubais, Igor Yusufov (Russia’s energy minister until 2004), and Viyacheslav Sinugin (former deputy energy minister)—saying that the accident resulted from their “negligence, laxity, and a lack of engineering thinking.”
The October 2009 report estimated that addressing the wreckage to major power generating assets and environmental damage would cost up to 7.338 billion rubles (US$269 million). State-controlled RusHydro, the Russian Federation’s biggest hydropower producer, recently announced, however, that it would spend 20.6 billion rubles over the next two years on restoring the plant.
RusHydro, which owns power plants from the Finnish border in the northwest to the Chinese frontier in the south, has already restored four 640-MW generating units. Last year, it connected Unit 6 to the grid on Feb. 24, Unit 5 on March 22, Unit 4 on Aug. 2, and Unit 3 on Dec. 22. Restoration efforts have put the plant’s current capacity at 2,560 MW, and RusHydro reports that total energy output of the restored generating units exceeds the 10 billion kWh level.
Work has begun on the second phase of restoration. In 2011, RusHydro is expected to install six totally new units, manufactured by Power Machines, and in the final phase, spanning 2013 to 2014, it will replace the units restored last year with new ones. “The service life of new [generating units] will increase to 40 years [and the] new turbines will have the maximum efficiency of 96.6% and improved output and cavitation performance,” the company said. The hydraulic units will also reportedly be equipped with advanced diagnostic systems to promptly detect status changes and prevent accidents.
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| 1. A massive overhaul. Following the catastrophic explosion that killed 75 workers at the 6,400-MW Sayano-Shushenskaya Hydro Power Plant in Siberia in August 2009, plant owner RusHydro plans to replace all the station’s damaged units with new ones. Power Machines, a contractor that will build and install the 10 new hydraulic turbines, nine hydraulic generators, and six excitation systems, has begun work on the Unit 1 stator. RusHydro has to date restored four less-damaged units and says the plant’s capacity now exceeds 2,560 MW. Courtesy: Power Machines |
Power Machines said in a statement in March that the second phase of restoration was on track. Work to assemble generator components for Unit 1 was being carried out in the crater of Unit 9; the 540–metric ton stator will later be moved to the prepared crater at Unit 1 using a custom-made lifting beam (Figure 1). Unit 1 is now scheduled to be put into operation in December 2011.
—Sonal Patel is POWER’s senior writer.