Transpower Accepts Recommendations From Fallen Tower Investigation

Transpower has accepted the recommendations and findings of the independent investigation report it commissioned into the electricity transmission tower fall at Glorit on 20 June, which it has released today.

The report confirms the initial findings announced by Transpower and service provider Omexom on 24 June. The tower fell because the Omexom crew that was performing routine baseplate maintenance work did not follow Omexom’s standard practice and removed all of the nuts from three of the tower’s four legs.

Transpower Acting Chief Executive John Clarke said Transpower apologises again to everyone affected by the resulting power cuts.

“We never like to see power cuts and we apologise to the Northland community for the disruption caused to people’s lives and businesses,” he said.

“We can’t undo what happened, but we can put in place improved measures to prevent anything like this happening again. We accept the findings and recommendations from this investigation and are already moving to address them.”

Mr Clarke said that the investigation found Omexom’s crew did not follow their company’s standard practice for this type of work and that tower would not have fallen if those practices had been followed.

”Our specifications require that nothing is done that could compromise tower stability. We don’t prescribe how many nuts should be removed and in what order, as service providers have the flexibility to determine their own processes that achieve the task safely and effectively,” he said.

While the investigation found that the immediate cause of the tower fall was the actions of Omexom’s crew, it also finds that Transpower can strengthen its oversight of service provider work to ensure practices are robust and that crews have the correct competencies. It should also review how specific it is about how this work is undertaken.

Recommendations include reviewing and revising Transpower’s drawings and specifications, enhancing the training available from Transpower’s electricity industry skill development centre, and improving audit procedures.

Transpower’s service providers across the country will also each be required to provide Transpower with a new work procedure incorporating Transpower’s updates, which Transpower will review; put staff through refresher training that Transpower will deliver; and re-assess and re-certify their workers as competent to undertake this type of work.

“We stopped all baseplate refurbishment work within 24 hours of the tower collapsing and service providers will not be able to recommence this work until they have been through these steps,” Mr Clarke said.

Transpower acknowledges Omexom’s incident review is still underway, as is the Electricity Authority review requested by the Minister. Transpower will respond to any additional recommendations from these reports in due course.

Insufficient supervision and competency

The investigation also found that, at the time of the incident, there was insufficient supervision of two less-experienced workers by the supervisor. The supervisor was sandblasting one tower leg, which required their full attention, this action removed their ability to see what others were doing. At that time, a less-experienced member of the crew removed the nuts from the bolts on two other baseplates.

The less-experienced workers had received in-person, on-the-job training but had not received any formal training for the work they were doing, and were not certified by Omexom as competent for the tasks they completed unsupervised. This is not aligned with Transpower’s requirements or industry supervision guidelines.

Mr Clarke said Transpower is waiting for the findings and recommendations of the investigation it requested from Omexom to better understand exactly how this situation developed.

Mr Clarke said he recognised that this incident has been highly stressful for those involved at Omexom.
“We want our people and our service providers to know they have our support in undertaking the tens of thousands of hours of work each month that it takes to maintain our country’s national electricity grid,” he said.

“The people that work on our assets are proud of the mahi they do to keep the lights on for Aotearoa, and it is important to note that an incident of this nature is exceptionally rare.

“There are risks in the work we do, both Transpower and our service providers share a ‘safety-first’ culture and take great pride in keeping our people safe. We are relieved that in this instance no one was hurt.

“We also want to thank the large industrial companies and services like the hospital who went without power or relied on their standby generation for several days to ensure that we could make the available electricity go further.”

The full report and Transpower’s response to the recommendations are available on Transpower’s website along with a glossary of terms and a profile of the investigator Daniel Twigg.

© Scoop Media