Generator Failure Sidelines Gibson Unit for Months

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Early last week, the Gibson generating station (Owensville, Indiana) took Unit 4 offline for what appeared to be a rather simple fix; a bar failed in the stator, and the generator's hydrogen cooling system needed repairs.

However, this week the problem grew much worse.

As of Tuesday afternoon, General Electric, the manufacturer of the aforementioned generator, was on site assessing recent damage, which is purported to be so bad that the generator might have to be replaced. The cause is still under investigation, but the generator failure is believed to have started when bearings within the turbine overheated and caused an oil fire. Eventually, the fire followed along the oil lines back to the hydrogen coolant tanks, causing a flash fire that knocked out the coolant system and led to a complete generator failure. Whatever the damage ends up being, Gibson personnel said Wednesday morning that it would probably be "several months" of repairing/replacing the heavily damaged generator, as well as non-major turbine repairs. Moreover, there will also have to be repairs on other items that undoubtedly would have been damaged by such catastrophic equipment failure.

The Gibson facility became operational in 1975-76 when units 1 and 2 began electrical generation. In 1978, 1979 and 1982, Public Service Indiana (PSI) added units 3, 4 and 5, which increased the total net generating capability of the plant to nearly 3,150 megawatts. Now owned by Duke Energy (Charlotte, NC), Gibson is the company's largest generating facility of any kind.

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