Transformer explosion and fire at Entergy substation in Port Neches

What happened

At about 8 p.m. on Tuesday 28 April 2020, a transformer at an Entergy-managed substation in the distribution yard of the petrochemical plant in Port Neches, Texas, exploded and caught fire. Indorama Ventures, which had recently acquired the Huntsman plant, reported the incident. The substation supplies power to Port Neches, Groves and parts of the plant. Indorama's onsite fire brigade and the Port Neches Fire Department responded shortly after the explosion, and Entergy crews attended.

Indorama reported no injuries and no detected releases. Power outages within the plant took some units offline. Entergy said the transformer had failed and that the cause was still under investigation, and that crews had isolated the issue and restored all customers. Indorama said plant units were back online or restarting and that there had been no off-site impacts from the plant during the outage or recovery. Entergy crews were also responding to severe weather that night, which left around 20,000 people without power across Southeast Texas; the source does not link that weather to this failure.

Contributing factors

The source does not state a cause. Entergy said the transformer failed and that the source of the failure was still under investigation. Severe weather was affecting the wider network that night, but the source does not link it to the failure.

Lessons learned

1. Substations that feed industrial sites need fire separation and rapid isolation so that a transformer failure does not spread or cut power to neighbouring communities.
2. Plants with an onsite fire brigade should agree response arrangements with the utility and the local fire department in advance.
3. Operators should plan for sudden loss of supply, with safe shutdown and restart sequences for each unit, so that units can be restarted once power is restored.

More lessons on spacing, layout and fire spread, fire suppression and firefighting, outages, backup supply and restoration, from every incident on the register.

Source

beaumontenterprise.com