Transformer explosion at Islamabad thermal power plant, Isfahan, Iran

What happened

An explosion damaged a transformer at the Islamabad thermal power plant in Isfahan, in central Iran, at about 5:00 am on a Sunday, according to the state news agency IRNA. The managing director of Isfahan's electricity company said the transformer was worn out and had exploded. No casualties were reported. The plant returned to normal working conditions after about two hours, and the company said Isfahan's power supply was not interrupted.

The report notes that the incident came amid a series of fires and explosions at military and civilian sites across Iran in the preceding weeks, and that there was speculation about sabotage, but the reported cause of this incident was faulty equipment.

Contributing factors

The transformer is described as worn out, which is the equipment fault reported by IRNA. No maintenance history, loading or operating conditions were reported.

Lessons learned

1. Transformers approaching the end of their service life should be covered by condition monitoring, such as oil and thermal testing, with planned replacement rather than run to failure.
2. Operators should hold spare transformers or switching arrangements so that supply can be restored quickly when a unit fails.
3. Transformer fire risk should be reduced through protection relays, adequate separation distances, and fire suppression or containment appropriate to oil-filled units.

More lessons on detection and monitoring, outages, backup supply and restoration, fire suppression and firefighting, from every incident on the register.

Source

cbsnews.com