You work as a foreman for an electrical services firm. Your company recently landed a new client, and your crew is performing the work of the first project for that client.
The plant’s been experiencing problems that indicate power quality issues. Thus, this project is a data gathering mission on live equipment. It includes conducting thermography in various panels, including switchgear panels; performing power quality analysis on the feeder circuits using a portable power quality analyzer; and taking current measurements on selected 480V feeders and branch circuits using current clamps with DMMs.
This work, of course, must be done within the restricted approach boundary, which requires an energized electrical work permit [NFPA 70E 130.1(B)(1)] for each circuit [130.(B)(2)(1)].
Your project manager had discussed the work permit situation with the client weeks before the project was to begin. The client promised to take care of that. Nobody at your firm reviewed these work permits; the client was taken at his word.
Now you and your crew are onsite, and the documentation package from the client includes only a blanket work permit. All the information is general. The client insists it’s adequate, since all the circuits are 480V circuits.
You call your project manager and explain that what’s missing is the arc flash risk assessment required by 130.1(B)(2)(6). The voltage may be the same on all the circuits, but the available incident energy may vary considerably. You refer to 130.5 and explain that not only must it be done, but also it will take time to do it. You’re doubtful there will be time today to perform the assessment and perform the work. You suggest a meeting or phone conference between him and the client to decide what to do.
Your project manager tells you to just wear your highest rated PPE and get the job done. “The next time around, we’ll do the assessment in advance. But if we don’t do this work, there won’t be a next time around.”
What’s happening here is the project manager is trying to sidestep his responsibility and pressure you into performing work in a way that could be unsafe. What if your highest rated PPE isn’t enough? What if there is some easily correctable danger the analysis would have revealed?
Rather than give in to this pressure, ask the client if he has an incident energy analysis report that is less than five years old [130.5(G)]. If so, you can use that to perform the arc flash risk assessment in parallel with the testing crew (staying one step ahead of them). If this project is so important to your company, then they should try to send a qualified person to your site to help knock this out so your crew doesn’t experience delay. Or, maybe the client could help — even if that means a discount against the project cost.
If the client hasn’t had an incident energy analysis performed in the past five years, then it simply is not safe for the work to proceed. Both the client and your company must accept that, and since NFPA 70E has OSHA behind it, they really don’t have much choice.
