All four units at Georgia Power’s Plant Bowen coal plant remained shut down Friday as the utility began investigating what caused an explosion the day before.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration also started an investigation but did not release any details.
The blast happened late Thursday afternoon as workers were shutting down Unit 2 for planned maintenance. It occurred in the “power house,” a rectangular building that holds the generators and turbines used to produce electricity, said Georgia Power spokesman Brian Green. The area where the coal is contained was not affected, he said.
Three people were treated for minor injuries. OSHA as well as federal and state environmental authorities went to the site, in Bartow County near Cartersville, Thursday night.
It’s too early to tell how long the plant will remain shut down or how much it will cost to fix the damage, Green said.
“We’re just taking the scope of what happened,” he said.
As a regulated monopoly, Georgia Power can ask state utility regulators for permission to recoup the costs of the shutdown from consumers, but getting to that point will take a while. The utility has to determine whether its workers or subcontractors were involved and whether they were liable. Whether the incident is covered by insurance also comes into play.
Then Georgia Power has to decide who bears those costs, the company or consumers. The utility could ask the Georgia Public Service Commission to pass costs on to customers, but the agency has to do its own review before that happens. If the PSC determines that Georgia Power was somehow at fault or acted “imprudently,” the utility may not be able to recoup all of the money from customers.
The amount could include capital costs as well as fuel-related costs.
“It’s very early to be discussing these things,” PSC Chairman Chuck Eaton said. “We’re going to take a close look at it regardless.”
OSHA has up to six months to complete an investigation and determine whether any standards were violated, according to agency spokeswoman Lindsay Williams. The agency will not issue any reports or comment on the investigation before that time.
Plant Bowen is one of the nation’s largest coal plants and routinely ranks near the top of toxic emissions because of its size. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Georgia Environmental Protection Division will not investigate the incident any further after determining that there were no significant releases of air pollution.
The emissions at the plant remained within permitted levels during the explosion and afterward, said Kevin Chambers, a spokesman for the state’s natural resources department.
Environmental groups remained concerned, however. Such incidents “need to become reminders of a bygone era, not a sign of things to come,” said Jennette Gayer, Environment Georgia’s policy advocate, which is pushing for increased use of renewable fuels instead of coal.
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