Aboadze explosion: No cause for alarm –Official

A day after the Minister of Energy, Emmanuel Armah Kofi Buah, assured the country of gas to feed the Asogli plant in Tema, an early morning explosion Friday at the steam turbine of the Takoradi Thermal Station at Aboadze has resulted in the loss of 100 megawatts of power constituting about 20 per cent of the stations capacity.

However, officials of the Volta River Authority (VRA) say there is no cause for alarm.

According to them, the situation would be resolved by Monday and that it would have minimal effect on power supply since demand for the weekend was minimal.

Aside the loss and damage to the circuit breaker at about 08:05 Friday, an official who was then working near the breakers at the time of the explosion was affected by a strong white lighting and was rushed to hospital for medical attention has been treated and discharged.

Speaking to the Daily Graphic, VRA’s Director for Thermal Energy Generation, Mr Richard Badger, confirmed that there was an explosion at one of the three circuit breaker poles which was then carrying about 100 megawatts of power.

He said the explosion resulted in a flame but there was no fire since the station’s fire fighters were present at the scene to contain the situation.

He said it would take some days to restore the lost 100 megawatts.

Mr Badger said the area where the incident took place was an isolated area, thus, the explosion did not affect any of the generating units except for the steam turbine which had the capacity of generating 100 megawatts.

He explained further that, the steam turbine was not in operation as a result of a planned maintenance work to be done on it.

He said the circuit breaker which was damaged by the explosion was important since it regulated the transfer of power from the generator to the transmission systems.

Asked what the possible cause of explosion could be, Mr Badger said he was not in the position to speculate, adding that an investigation would be conducted to determine the cause.

He said engineers had started analyzing the situation to ensure that the circuit breaker was replaced on time, adding that, there was enough back up for power to be supplied untill Monday when it was expected that the lost megawatts would be replaced.

The plant manager said they would not speculate the possible cause and that they were investigation and analysis to determine what went wrong and that important thing at the moment was that the situation was saved before it got out of hand.

By Moses Dotsey Aklorbortu/Ghana