Underground work on the Snowy 2.0 project, the expansion of Australia’s Snowy Mountains Hydroelectric Scheme, has been stopped after an underground ventilation fan imploded.
The metal blades of the ventilation fan broke the fan casing and travelled 30 to 40m across the construction site, without harming any worker in the tunnel.
After the incident, underground work was completely halted for the inspection of all fans.
Snowy Hydro, the entity responsible for the Snowy 2.0 project development, is seeking an immediate independent safety review and audit.
The organisation is calling for a change in leadership of the project from the current primary contractor Future Generation Joint Venture (FGJV).
FGJV will cooperate with SafeWork NSW, a government agency responsible for regulating workplace health and safety, to ensure the safety and restart of the tunnel work.
Snowy Hydro, in its statement, said: “Nothing is more important to Snowy Hydro than safety. Recent safety concerns at Snowy 2.0 have made it clear that as the client, our assurance role over FGJV’s activities requires this intervention.
“We’re committed to working with our workforce and unions to ensure that the safety standards we expect are in place at Snowy 2.0.”
Snowy 2.0 is a large-scale renewable energy project designed to provide an additional 2,200MW of on-demand energy and around 350,000MWh of storage capacity.
The project involves linking the existing Tantangara dams and Talbingo dams through a 27km tunnel and a new underground power station.
Snowy 2.0 is expected to generate around 4,000 direct jobs in the Snowy Mountains region throughout the life of the project, and thousands more in supply chain and services roles.
Australian Workers’ Union NSW branch secretary Tony Callinan called the accident ‘extremely lucky’, as no workers were present in the area at the time.
Tony Callinan said: “Workers had lost all confidence in the management of the project, which had faced multiple delays since work began in late 2019.
“We’ve had a number of serious incidents here now where we’ve been lucky, sooner or later, we’re going to be unlucky, and we’ll be dealing with major injuries or worse.”
