Event
- Event ID
- 495
- Quality
- Description
- A nuclear power lant experienced a generator hydrogen fire.
The event started with a short circuit inside the main transformer, which damaged the hydrogen coolant system of the generator, followed by multiple hydrogen fires in the turbine hall.
The steam supply system of the reactor detected the failure of the transformer and was separated from the turbine-generator unit. The reactor was successfully shut down. There was no radiation emission.
The damage was limited to the plant's main transformer, electrical conductors and wires leading from the generator to the transformer.
The fire was extinguished by onsite personnel.
The outage lasted one month. - Event Initiating system
- Classification of the physical effects
- Hydrogen Release and Ignition
- Nature of the consequences
- Fire (No additional details provided)
- Macro-region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Date
- How was it involved?
- Rupture & Formation Of A Flammable H2-Air Mixture
- Initiating cause
- Conventional Component Failure (Electricity, Power)
- Root causes
- Root CAUSE analysis
- The INITATING CAUSE was an electrical failure of the main transformer, responsible for the supply of the electrical power generated in the reactor to the electrical national grid.
The power plant operator stated that "... there is no way of guaranteeing that transformer will not fail". The ROOT CAUSE can then by identified as unspecified material failure.
Facility
- Application
- Power Plant
- Sub-application
- Nuclear power plant - PWR
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- All components affected
- Main generator
- Location type
- Unknown
- Location description
- Industrial Area
- Operational condition
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of injured persons
- 0
- Number of fatalities
- 0
- Post-event summary
- Damage was limited to the transformer itself and to a part of the hyrogen supply system.
Lesson Learnt
- Lesson Learnt
The US.NRC issued a note to alert addressees to problems that could result from inadequate controls to ensure that shift staffing is sufficient to accomplish all necessary functions required by an event. It is expected that recipients will review the information for applicability to their facilities and consider actions, as appropriate, to avoid similar problems.- Corrective Measures
- In this plant, the breaker was installed between the transformer and the offsite electrical grid. The transformer was placed outside the turbine-generator hall and is separated from it by a hall wall.
The operator investigated how to further minimise the effects of transformer failures.
Event Nature
- Release type
- gas
- Involved substances (% vol)
- H2 100%
- Presumed ignition source
- Not reported
References
- Reference & weblink
US NRC document ML20073N464<br />
https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2007/ML20073N464.pdf<br />
(accessed January 2026)US NRC document ML20083D289<br />
https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2008/ML20083D289.pdf<br />
(accessed January 2026)US.NRC Information Notice No. 91-77: Shift Staffing at Nuclear Power Plants<br />
available at https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/gen-comm/info-notices/19…
JRC assessment
- Sources categories
- NRC