25 Aug 2009 19:21

Watchdog says broken turbine blade, generator gyration not causes of Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP accident

MOSCOW. Aug 25 (Interfax) - The Federal Environmental, Technological and Atomic Oversight Service (Rostekhnadzor) has rejected several theories aired earlier about the causes behind last week's accident at the Sayano-Shushenskaya Hydroelectric Power Plant.

Rostekhnadzor chief Nikolai Kutin said at a press conference on Tuesday that the theory of a terrorist attack was eliminated before anything else. An inspection of the second power generating unit was sufficient to make this determination, he said.

Everything that happened at the plant was the result of an overload of the second power generating unit.

Kutin also denied the theory of a hydraulic impact. No damage was found to the turbine blades on the second unit, he said. In addition, a previous theory that excessive gyrations of the power unit could have led to the destruction of the generating hall "was not confirmed," he said.

Rostekhnadzor is trying to create a mathematic model to determine how the turbine was functioning at the moment the accident occurred, he said.