The recent Plant Engineering Webcast on the link between maintenance and electrical safety is now available for review at www.plantengineering.com/Webcasts.

Some of the questions asked during the presentation from Shon Isenhour, principal at Eruditio, LLC, were unable to be answered during the Webcast, and Isenhour responds to those questions below.

Q: How do small operations with limited manpower perform motor maintenance on off shifts safely with limited certified personnel?

Isenhour: If you are unable to support these maintenance tasks safely with the existing qualified people, or you are unable to qualify more people internally this sounds like an opportunity to use outside contractors. Contractors are a perfectly viable option when a specialty skill set or qualification doesn’t exist in-house to support certain activities.

Q: Do you need both category and incident energy on the arc flash label?

Isenhour: Not necessarily; the following comes right from the NFPA 70E FAQ provided by NFPA.org: 

https://www.nfpa.org/Assets/files/AboutTheCodes/70E/NFPA%2070E_FAQs.pdf

Items (1) a.b.c. apply when an incident energy analysis is performed. Item (1)d. applies when the hazard/risk category method is used. In accordance with 130.5(C) is to include all of the following information:

(1) At least one of the following —

a. Available incident energy in cal/cm2 and the working distance

b. Minimum arc rating of clothing

c. Required level of PPE

d. Highest hazard/risk category (HRC) for the equipment

(2) Applicable nominal system voltage

(3) Applicable arc flash boundary

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