Georgia Power Says Human Error To Blame for Coal Plant Explosion

“Unfortunately those executing the process did not comply with procedures and along with a breakdown in communication that’s what led to the event,” said Kraft.

The explosion at Plant Bowen, which is about 50 miles northwest of Atlanta, caused three injuries and could be heard miles away.

Kraft says employees had been conducting a planned outage of one of the units.  

“As part of this planned maintenance outage it includes a multi-step process to purge hydrogen from the generator. Somewhere in this process this mixture of hydrogen and air got together and that’s what caused the explosion,” said Kraft.

Kraft says the company is still investigating the matter, adding “appropriate disciplinary actions have been taken.” Kraft would not elaborate whether employees have been suspended or removed.  

The state’s top utility regulator says any employee responsible for the incident should be held accountable. 

“It appears as if procedures weren’t followed and it created an extremely dangerous situation and, yes, disciplinary action and terminations are probably warranted,” said Chuck Eaton, chairman of the Public Service Commission.

Of the four units at the plant, two remain offline as a result of the blast.