NFPA 70E: What’s in the 2018 edition?: Your questions answered
Presenter Lanny Floyd answers questions about changes to NFPA 70E that were not addressed during the live webcast.
The "NFPA 70E: What’s in the 2018 edition?” webcast was presented live on Nov. 30, 2017 by Lanny Floyd, PE, CSP, CESCP and a Life Fellow at IEEE. The webcast can be found on the archive site at www.plantengineering.com.
There wasn’t time to address all of the questions from the webcast’s attendees, and Floyd has supplied written answers to some of those questions:
Q: Are there any major changes in the 2018 NFPA 70E?
Floyd: The major changes in are highlighted in the forward of the standard. NFPA provides free access to read all of its standards. This feature does not enable printing or downloading standards for free. Go to this URL: https://www.nfpa.org/codes-and-standards/all-codes-and-standards/list-of-codes-and-standards/detail? Code=70E
Q: Are rescue hooks and training required?
Floyd: In addition to the major changes highlighted in the forward, all changes are noted with grey highlighting throughout the standards.
Floyd: NFPA 70E provides guidance on training for employees responsible for emergency response. CPR and AED training is not required unless the employees have responsibility for emergency response.
Floyd: There are refinements to the training requirements in article 110.2.
Q: Table 130.7 C) (14) Arc rated Gloves. What glove meets these new testing qualification’s ?
Floyd: Everything in NFPA 70E is applicable to Educational institutions.
Floyd: One thing you could consider is to require contractors’ electrical safety programs to conform with requurements of NFPA 70E. You should then audit compliance to make sure what you are getting.
Floyd: Rather tahan compare to what is different betwee the 2018 revisoon and the 2015 revision, I suggest comapring your existing electrical safety program to the 2018 edition. This will help identify gaps and opportuniteis fro reducuing risk of electrical injuries.
Floyd: OSHA regulations do not specify what technology should be used. The guidance in NFPA 70E provides ways to comply with OSHA intent.
Q: With PPE do people put too much reliance in it and feel like that is all they need?
Q: Once a piece of equipment becomes hard wired it essentially changes from portable to permanent. Is your presentation suggesting that all user operated electrical equipment be powered by GFI devices and if not where do you draw the line between when is should be used and when it’s not needed?
Q: Why wouldn’t UK have a higher fatality rate since they use 240V 1P instead of 120V 1P voltage?
Floyd: The UK, other western Europen countries, Australia, Japan and other countries place greater emphasis on the top three controls in the heirarchy of controls than we do in the US.. The top three controls address risk reduction in design of tools, equipment, and systems. To learn more, visit the NIOSH Prevention through Design website.
Q: Do you see Prevention thru Design getting some traction in the USA in the near future? (That is, requiring equipment manufacturers the liability for providing safe machines – similar to ISO 13849 in Europe).
Q: 96% or so of all arc flash incidents involve ground faults. Why is there no mention that the use of ungrounded systems will eliminate 96% of all arc flash incidents?
Floyd: The impact of grounding for reducing arc flash events is discussed in Annex O. Undgrounded systems are not specically mentioned, however high resistance grounding is. High resistance grounding provides voltage stabality druing fault conditions as well as reducing magnitude of ground fault currents.
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