DUSHANBE, February 23, Asia-Plus — Investigations into cause of a total flooding of Pamir-1 hydropower plant are still ongoing.
In view of several reports on the causes of the accident at the plant, PamirEnergy issued press release to clarify some facts.
Press release, in particular, said that in early January, the temperature dropped dramatically in Khorog to a 15 year record level of ? 19°C, causing a freezing of the surface of the plant’s reservoir, which reduced the water flow to the power plant. As a consequence the power plant could run on only one generator instead of three to satisfy the demand.
“PamirEnergy duly reported the difficult conditions to the Government of GBAO who declared the situation as an emergency and appointed an Emergency Commission composed of representatives of the Government of GBAO, the Emergency Services in GBAO and PamirEnergy representatives,” press release said.
After due investigations and review, the Emergency Commission decided to resolve the situation. As a consequence, and under the supervision of the Emergency Services of GBAO, a duly licensed Blasting Company was instructed to blast the ice.
The operations carried out by the Blasting Company resulted in restoring permanent normal flow of water to the Pamir-1 power plant on January 21. This enabled Pamir-1 power plant to operate on three generators for 15 days without any incident.
On February 5, at 5:30 pm, a total flooding of the plant took place.
Immediately after the incident, the First Deputy Prime Minister appointed an Investigation Committee formed of the First Deputy Minister of Energy and Industries, three specialists of Barqi Tojik power holding, Tajik Norak hydroelectric power station (HPS) and the Head of Inspection of Gosgortechnadzor for GBAO to investigate the causes of the accident.
On February 14, 2007, the Investigation Committee issued its report. The report concluded the following:
“On February 5, 2007, at 17.30 a powerful hydraulic shock occurred on hydro unit No.2 due to formation of air locks under turbine cover that resulted in stripping of fixing bolts of the turbine cover… ” “After surge of the turbine cover of hydro unit No.2, the power house was immediately flooded due to high pressure of water…”
The abovementioned report was signed by the Chairman of the Inspection Committee – First Deputy Minister of Energy and Industries.
The report did not indicate any relation between the blasting of the ice at the plant’s reservoir and the accident.
The current conclusions of the Foreign Specialists (German Company Fichtner) hired by PamirEnergy for insurance purposes are also consistent with the above report.
According to their findings, the internal parts of the turbine do not show any sign of damage to suggest that a rock or block of ice could have come through the water supply tunnel and penstocks. As a result, to-date, there is no definitive relation between the incident and the blasting of the ice 15 days earlier.
Investigations are on going and further results will be reported in due course.
All senior Managers of the company are concentrating their efforts, together with the support of the Government of Tajikistan and of the local Authorities, as well as the key equipment suppliers, to rehabilitate the least damaged Unit 4 as fast as possible thus minimizing the inconvenience to the people of GBAO.
