Event
- Event ID
- 231
- Quality
- Description
- This was event took place at a heat-electric power plant, while perfroming tests using the reserve power generator. Hydrogen used as coolant and motor oil on the engine rotor ignited. The alarm was registered at 11:26 and the fire was extinguished at 12:03.
It did not affect the operation of the main power plant. - Event Initiating system
- Classification of the physical effects
- Hydrogen Release and Ignition
- Nature of the consequences
- Fire (No additional details provided)
- Macro-region
- Europe
- Date
- How was it involved?
- Leak & Formation Of A Flammable H2-Hc-Air Mixture
- Initiating cause
- Unknown
- Root causes
- Unknown (No additional details provided)
Facility
- Application
- Power Plant
- Sub-application
- Combined Heat and Power generation
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- All components affected
- H2 seal, H2 coolant system, generator
- Location type
- Unknown
- Operational condition
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of injured persons
- 0
- Number of fatalities
- 0
- Emergency action
- The technician performing the filling executed the following actions:
1) Isolate and shut down hydrogen supply to the gas cylinder from bulk storage
2) Open the cylinder-mounted outlet valve attempting to discharge the hydrogen from the gas cylinder; this action did not have any effect due to the non-returning feature of that valve
After having noticed that the cylinder had increased in temperature, he suspected the presence of a flame, although this was complete invisible (the incident occurred during the day). He proceeded than the following actions:
3) Tried to extinguish the initial hydrogen flame using the fire extinguisher provided in the storage facility, but the production of fume continued,
4) Called fire brigade who extinguished the recurring hydrogen flame and fire on the plastic insulation around the top of the gas cylinder
Event Nature
- Release type
- Gas-liquid mixture
- Involved substances (% vol)
- H2,
oil - Presumed ignition source
- Electricity
References
- Reference & weblink
The link to this technical magazine is lost
JRC assessment
- Sources categories
- FireWorld