We want to promote the right practices in industries around how to safely rack in and out circuit breakers. There are too many instances where what gets attention is when things go wrong. While that’s important to learn what not to do, we want to celebrate the heroes of the industry that do things correctly day in and day out and keep America’s industry running.
It’s no secret that the electrical infrastructure in America is aging. Due to the potential condition of the equipment you can find yourself in a circumstance where you must engage with aging devices. This doesn’t mean you have to compromise safety in these situations. Being aware of industry best practices as well as having the necessary knowledge to interact with these systems will greatly increase your chances of a successful engagement with this equipment.
This is one of the riskiest actions that is faced regularly in the industry today. Here are some items to consider from a safety standpoint:
- If possible, remove power from the equipment – while this is not generally an option, when it is take advantage of it and remove the danger point.
- NFPA 70 E defines several key items that should be included in your Standard Operating Procedure (SOP):
- Identify incident energy level – this should be defined on each piece of equipment as this will dictate what you should be wearing to safely interact with the equipment.
- I.e: Level of force you can be dealing with under a short circuit condition
- Approach boundaries should be understood
- Limited and restricted – are defined by the types of work that will be performed on the equipment and the distances you must consider in these situations.
- Personal protection equipment (PPE) should be defined
- Minimum of 8 calorie pants and shirt just to enter a room.
- Exact PPE will be dictated by the NFPA70E per each piece of equipment
- Personal protection equipment (PPE) should be defined
- Controlling the entry to the room is important – that should be defined by the end user and limiting access to qualified personnel is highly recommended.
- Any time you’re engaging with a breaker try not to stand directly in front of the device. Often this is forgotten as awareness goes down as the repetition of the exercise increases. You may remember on breaker number one but how about breaker number 20 and you have 20 more to go. Try to not let the redundancy be an excuse for a mistake.
- If something is giving resistance do not force close. Forcing equipment should be an indicator that something is wrong, and you should take time to stop and investigate what could be impacting the process.
If you can remove yourself from the environment during this procedure take advantage of that technology. Remote racking devices allow you to remove yourself from the immediate risk area to safely rack in and out the devices. Typically, they have a remote via cord and pendant station or even wireless options exist. This gives the user the ability to perform the riskiest action in a safe environment. When equipment is going on and coming off the bus is when things can happen. Remove yourself completely from that part of the equation with this type of technology.
Don’t let the pressure of the situation let you make a mistake. If something is going wrong and the plant is down, go to the fundamentals. Staying levelheaded and following your processes and procedures will keep you and your team safe. Be comfortable and understand your equipment to the best of your ability to ensure a safe day for everyone.
