In smaller job shops or maintenance organizations, the term “electrical safety program” unfortunately tends to take on an informal meaning. “Yep, we do lockout/tagout, it’s in our safety program” misses quite a bit of what’s meant. For one thing, lockout/tagout does not address work involving electrical hazards [Art. 130], such as taking voltage measurements or conducting thermography. It addresses putting the equipment into an electrically safe condition [Art. 120].
The first thing to understand is this is the name of a program. It’s not a few lines added to the company’s existing safety program. It does, however, integrate with that program. NFPA 70 defines it as, “A documented system consisting of electrical principles, policies, procedures, and processes, that directs activities appropriate for the risk associated with electrical hazards.”
Informative Annex E, Electrical Safety Program, provides additional insight. It briefly outlines the principles [E.1], controls [E.2], and procedures [E.3] — but that’s not the whole story. If you turn to Chapter 1 of NFPA 70E, you find:
- Article 105. Employer responsibilities and employee responsibilities.
- Article 110. General requirements (a good guide for developing your electrical safety program)
- Article 120. How to make it “not hot.”
- Article 130. How to work it hot.
But that’s still not the whole story. Chapter 2 covers the safety-related maintenance requirements. This part is often overlooked, but it’s crucial. If there is any sign that equipment is not properly maintained, you must assume it is hazardous until methodically proven otherwise. Which means applying the tedious and extensive requirements of Art. 130. Just as an example, a panel cover with a missing bolt is a maintenance defect. If you see that, you must assume there are other maintenance defects.
Then Chapter 3 covers the safety requirements for special equipment. Among these are batteries and capacitors, both of which the typical industrial/commercial electrician is likely to encounter. UPS systems with rack-mounted batteries are fairly ubiquitous, and power factor correction capacitors are commonly installed at the service entrance to avoid the utility’s power factor penalty. In plants where power factor is actually understood, power factor capacitors or power factor corrected variable speed drives are installed at large motors.
So we can see the term “electrical safety program” means much more than a glossary entry can convey — and that’s still not the end of the story. It’s a reality that test equipment does not have an easy life. It gets dropped, exposed to overvoltages, and variously used and abused. While it’s designed to be amazingly tough, there are limits to what it can take.
In power generating stations and large industrial facilities, there is yet another aspect to the electrical safety program. It’s the metrology lab, the place where test equipment is inspected and maintained. This lab also sends test equipment out for calibration and recertification. A smaller maintenance operation or other smaller concern can’t support its own in-house metrology lab, but it can outsource to a third party that has its own such lab or at least send suspect equipment to the manufacturer for assessment and reconditioning.
Now you have an overview of the whole story. If you see a big gap between this story and what you have for an electrical safety program, how do you close that? You could hire someone to work inhouse as your electrical safety program manager. Or you could outsource to a firm that specializes in this. If the gap isn’t very big, you can find templates available for you to DIY it, but think first about how you’ve gone behind DIY electrical work done by a friend or neighbor. If you are not a qualified person, electrical safety is a poor choice for learning by trial and error.
