SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (KY3) – City Utilities of Springfield started the week with a massive power outage due to miles of downed poles. Now, its staff is working to repair some damage from an explosion inside the southwest power plan
City Utilities says no one was hurt, but the blow early Wednesday morning high inside the John Twitty Energy Center left some damage.
“With that puff, which is basically just a minor explosion, it did end up blowing some of the sheeting off the south and the east side of the exterior of the plant out here at JTEC,” CU spokesman Joel Alexander said Friday.
CU says it also did some damage to a coal bunker and the equipment that feeds the coal into unit number 2, though the power generating unit itself was not damaged.
“We’ve never skipped a beat, as far as providing power to our customers,” Alexander said.
City Utilities believes it was a buildup of carbon monoxide gas and coal dust in the bunker that caused the explosion.
“With any industry, there are inherent risks and dangers, and one of the things we have here at a power plant is issues with coal build-up, coal gas, coal dust, and it’s just one of the many many things our staff is trained to deal with,” said Alexander.
He says the lumps of coal are ground into fine powder to be burned, producing energy, and it is volatile.
“It’s something we deal with, quite honestly, on a very frequent basis,” Alexander said.
They’re weather-proofing the holes high in the building on the inside for now, and say the damaged coal equipment should be repaired by Tuesday. Meanwhile, CU says there are teams looking further into the cause, and whether any changes could prevent a repeat explosion.
“As far as a power plant goes, whether it be coal, whether it be natural gas, you’re always going to have some type of risk of something like this,” Alexander said.
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