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Arc Flash: ‘It Will Never Happen to Me’ - One of the UK’s Most Overlooked Safety Risks

John Beirne

The HSE states that around 1,000 workplace electrical incidents are reported to them each year including circa 25 fatalities a year.  However, it is also believed that arc flash incidents are far higher than officially reported.



I would like to think that you would all agree that the above mentioned amount of incidents is not acceptable.  Therefore, how can we reduce the risk of arc flash?  I am working with IET Safety Panel reviewing the ‘Arc Flash Protection Fact Sheet’ and I need your help to understand why we have so many incidents and fatalities and investigate barriers to reduce such incidents and fatalities.



Some of my thoughts are:



PPE Regulations (EU) 2016/425.



Does PPE Regulations (EU) 2016/425 satisfy your requirements?  (yes we need to drop the EU).



Do they need amending and if so where and why?



Reporting.



Is there a requirement to improve the incident reporting format, to provide greater clarity and understanding of how such incidents occur, thus allowing us to look at the human factor elements?



Training.



Is there a requirement to improve training and or standards with respect to arc flash?



There is a various amount of literature about control measures and how to mitigate arc flash, which can be confusing.  Is there a generic risk assessment for Switching (Either LV or HV) that identifies arc flash?



Is the arc flash risk assessment understandable and easy to follow?



Personal Experience.



You may have witnessed arc flash and wish to inform us why you believed it occurred.



Thank you for reading this forum and trying to promote a safer working environment for your fellow electrical engineers.  I look forward to your constructive replies.



Kind regards,



John


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  • 0
    I know we are probably talking about AC arc flash here, but as more DC power is being used, and in particular with large battery storage systems, we may well see more incidents. It's certainly not unknown for those installing UPS, and not following manufacturer's instructions on the sequence of installation of batteries, to have had nasty burns from arc flash events.


    For this reason, an arc flash assessment and risk assessment process was included in the recently published second edition of the IET Code of Practice for Electrical Energy Storage Systems, to help designers of discrete component battery systems (custom-designed, rather than purchased as a pre-assessed product) address the issue as far as practicable in design, and also select suitable working practices and PPE for installation, commissioning, maintenance and decommissioning.
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  • 0
    I know we are probably talking about AC arc flash here, but as more DC power is being used, and in particular with large battery storage systems, we may well see more incidents. It's certainly not unknown for those installing UPS, and not following manufacturer's instructions on the sequence of installation of batteries, to have had nasty burns from arc flash events.


    For this reason, an arc flash assessment and risk assessment process was included in the recently published second edition of the IET Code of Practice for Electrical Energy Storage Systems, to help designers of discrete component battery systems (custom-designed, rather than purchased as a pre-assessed product) address the issue as far as practicable in design, and also select suitable working practices and PPE for installation, commissioning, maintenance and decommissioning.
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