Explosion in the Turbine Hall of a Power Plant
The incident occurred at the hydrogen coolant circuit, when purging the hydrogen with carbon dioxide and air, aiming at finding a leak. Following a preliminary investigation, the power plant company explained that hydrogen was still present when air was injected, creating the condition for the formation of an explosive mixture. According to the sources referred to news mentioned in the References, it appears during the leak search activity, workers deviated from the established procedure.
Event Date
August 7, 2021
Record Quality Indicator
Region / Country
Event Initiating System
Classification of the Physical Effects
Nature of the Consequences
Causes
Cause Comments
The immediate cause of he explosion seems to be the erroneous injection of air into the hydrogen lines. it seems also that this occurred by deviating from the prescribed procedure. If confirmed, the root cause could be related to a human error or errors during the communication of the instructions
Facility Information
Application Type
Application
Specific Application Supply Chain Stage
Components Involved
hydrogen cooling system, turbine, generator
Storage/Process Medium
Location Type
Location description
Industrial Area
Pre-event Summary
The plant is a new coal-fired power station, and its construction is still on going. When completed, it will be able to provide 4.8GW. At the moment of the incident, only few units were already in function. The unit affected, of approximately 800 MW, was on a short-term outage. The incident occurred while looking for leak in the hydrogen coolant circuit.
Currency
Lessons Learned
Lessons Learned
Unknown
Event Nature
Emergency Action
Unknown
Detonation
No
Deflagration
No
High Pressure Explosion
No
High Voltage Explosion
No
Source Category
References
References
TECHCENTRAL news of 9 August 2021
https://techcentral.co.za/photos-extensive-damage-at-medupi-after-massi…