REDUCING THE POTENTIAL FOR MAJOR ACCIDENTS WITHIN THE POWER GENERATION SECTOR BY UTILISING OPERATIONAL EXPERIENCE

摘要

Accidents at Texas City and Buncefield in 2005 have increased awareness of the potential for similar accidents in the UK Power Generation sector. The importance of process safety has been recognised, and the need to focus on the potential for major accidents associated with the release of flammable substances or release of energy from high speed machinery or high voltage electrical systems.Many companies have been implementing Process Safety Management (PSM) systems to assess the risks from their existing operations and improve the performance of risk control systems. This has been a challenge due to the wide range of technology within the sector, with energy sources from fossil fuels to renewable sources, plus many ageing assets within the UK fleet of power stations.This paper will describe how a hazard identification and assessment methodology developed within the chemical sector has been applied to operational Power Stations. The Process Hazard Review (PHR) technique was originally developed in the 1990's by ICI to identify process safety concerns on operational plants following several serious accidents within the company on older plants.A team of knowledgeable operations and technical staff led by a process safety specialist consider each process system and use guidewords to identify credible hazardous events. The severity of the event is assessed, and the reliability and robustness of existing risk control measures judged against site experience and relevant good practice. The overall aim is to utilise the knowledge of staff to identify gaps or weaknesses in the risk control measures, including procedural controls, and make recommendations to address these shortcomings.Many Power Stations have been assessed using PHR in the last few years and the paper describes typical process safety issues that have been identified. It is typical for a relatively large number of recommendations to be raised. The paper will describe a methodology developed to help develop recommendations into clear actions, using a risk based approach and simple cost-benefit analysis.