The 500-megawatt power generating unit 10 was re-launched at Reftinskaya power station (part of OGK-5), having been fully restored after the breakdown, the spokesperson for OGK-5 reports. Yet it took the company nearly eighteen months to have the unit fixed.


The breakdown occurred on December 20, 2006 when the power station caught fire, destroying the roof of the main building and ruining the power unit completely. The power station’s second 2,000-megawatt section had to be shut down, which infringed on the system’s reliability and did the company over 237 million RUR worth of damage. Later on, the committee set up by Ural Federal District’s division of Rostechnadzor (the state environmental, technological, and nuclear safety watchdog) detected that the accident had been caused by corrosive destruction of the turbine-driven generator’s rotor. The committee also declared OGK-5 was doing a bad job of looking after the equipment’s safe running. The experts revealed, for example, that the repairs were greatly delayed in 2005-2006 (in 2005, only 43% of money allocated for repairs could be put to use, in 2006, the figure came to 96.2%).