On September 17, 2009, one month after the catastrophic accident at the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station claimed the lives of 75 people, Deputy Prime Minister of Russia met with the special committee formed for investigating the causes of the tragedy. Located on the Yenisei River, near Sayanogorsk in Khakassia, the Sayano-Shushenskaya station was the largest power plant in Russia and the sixth-largest hydroelectric plant in the world.
At the joint conference, the officials were not prepared to release the results of the investigation as to what led to the disaster, contrary to some earlier promises that were given to the families of workers who perished after the accident. Still, Mr. Sechin revealed several pieces of damning evidence in relation to the former management team that ran the power plant. The private contractor hired to do the repair work on turbine no. 2, where the accident took place, was in reality owned by the station’s managers.
The new discoveries show that the directors of the power plant were acting dishonestly in upgrading the equipment of the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP. The CJSC HydroEnergoRemont company that was awarded the contract for doing the repairs was owned by the station’s former director Nikolai Nevolko. After the accident, Mr. Nevolko become an advisor to the chairman of RusHydro. The station’s chief engineer Andrei Mitrofanov and one of its former chief engineers Aleksandr Pogonyaichenko, as well as the HPP’s head accountant Anna Mikhailovna, the deputy director for finances Natalya Grigorovich, and one more employee of the station Boris Bashmakov were also among the managing members of the contractor that was working on the station.
As Mr. Sechin noted, the executives of CJSC HydroEnergoRemont used a deceptively-misleading name that they selected for the venture in order to win a government tender for doing the repairs. The name chosen sounded very close to the name of the real daughter company of the Sayano-Shushenskaya power plant. Andrei Mitrofanov was the chairman of the commission in charge of approving the completion of repair work done at the station, while at the same time being a member of management of the company that was actually doing the repairs. The plant’s head accountant Anna Mikhailovna had no reservations about transferring money from the station’s account into her own.
According to the Deputy Prime Minister, the station’s managers were so distracted by their private projects that were being done on semi-legal basis that their attitude towards the plant’s safety and technological development could have been characterized as grossly negligent. RusHydro, the parent company that owns the power plant also took no measures to ascertain that the working conditions at the station were safe.
The Silovie Mashiny company that was supplying electrical equipment to the power plant has now lost its contract with the hydro station. The company was officially in charge of monitoring the progress of the turbine repairs, a task, which it failed to do according to Mr. Sechin. The gravity of the contractor’s negligence is exacerbated by the available evidence that it was the breakdown of turbine no. 2 that led to the disaster.
Early in the morning on August 17, 2009, the recently-repaired turbine no. 2 of the Sayano-Shushenskaya power plant experienced a sudden malfunction. The cap that separated the underwater part of the turbine from the generator and other equipment came of slightly, forming a leak. In the ordinary course of power generation, the cap is hermetically sealed. Under immense pressure, a column of water shot up through the turbine and completely destroyed it. Water then began filling the machine room where people were working. With water flowing in at more than 500 cubic meters a second, workers in the room had no time to escape. 75 people died in the accident.
According to a representative of Silovie Mashiny, the mounts on the caps of the turbines at the Sayano-Shushenskaya station have not been checked or repaired since 1979. However, it was not the fault of the cap mounts alone that caused problems. According to Nikolai Kutyin, the director of Rostechnadzor, Russia’s Federal Mining and Industrial Inspectorate, safety systems on some of the turbines failed to respond to the initial malfunction. Turbine no. 2 continued spinning even after it became completely submerged.
It is doubtful that any one cause was responsible for the tragic events on August 17. The reasons for the accident range widely from Russia’s decision to reform the energy sector to the failure of station’s personnel to adhere to mandated safety standards.
Deputy Prime Minister qualified his statements with respected to the former managers of the Sayano-Shushenskaya plant, noting that the investigation is yet to come up with tangible evidence of negligence.
Still, while federal officials may choose to take their time and be more meticulous about the investigation, the physical repair of the station cannot wait. For one, it will soon be winter in Khakassia. Second, every day that the station stands still Russia looses in its overall energy production. The completion of repair work at the power plant is scheduled for 2014. By that time, all ten turbines at the station will be replaced. In the near future, officials will also begin a close examination of the caps on other turbines that remained intact. Water caps at all of Russia’s twenty-one high-pressure hydro stations will also be checked.
The Russian government also intends to put in place personnel training programs for workers in the energy sector. Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko will be personally responsible for increasing the level of professional readiness of RusHydro executives. Russia’s top state officials have also given serious thoughts to establishing professional codes of ethics for certain occupations.
Deputy Prime Minister Sechin said that the tragedy at the Sayano-Shushenskaya plant could have been prevented and that it, in effect, must have been prevented. Regardless of what is said now, one should never forget the innocent victims of this man-made catastrophe.