PCCA Journal|2
nd
Quarter 2014
10
proach distances appears in appendices to the standards.
Protection from Flames and Electric Arc Hazards
• The employer must assess the workplace to identify work-
ers exposed to flame or electric-arc hazards.
• No later than January 1, 2015, employers must estimate the
incident heat energy of any electric-arc hazard to which a
worker would be exposed.
• No later than April 1, 2015, employers generally must
provide workers exposed to hazards from electric arcs with
protective clothing and other protective equipment with
an arc rating greater than or equal to the estimated heat
energy.
• Information on protecting workers from flames and electric
arcs appears in appendices to the standards.
Deenergizing Transmission and
Distribution Lines and Equipment
• Multiple crews working together on the same lines or
equipment must either: (a) coordinate their activities under
a single worker in charge and work as if all of the employ-
ees formed a single crew; or (b) independently comply
with the standard and, if there is no system operator in
charge of the lines or equipment, have separate tags and
coordinate deenergizing and reenergizing the lines and
equipment with the other crews.
Protective Grounding
• Employers may use insulating equipment other than a live-
line tool for placing grounds on or removing grounds from
circuits of 600 volts or less under certain conditions.
• Information on protective grounding for deenergized lines
appears in appendices to the standards.
Underground Electrical Installations
• Special precautions apply when employees perform work
that could cause a cable to fail.
Electrical Protective Equipment
• The Electrical Protective Equipment for Construction
standard applies to all construction work, not just electri-
cal power generation, transmission, and distribution work.
That standard also replaces the existing construction stan-
dard’s incorporation of out-of-date consensus standards
with a set of performance-oriented requirements that is
consistent with the latest revisions of the relevant consen-
sus standards.
• The final rule recognizes a new class of electrical protec-
tive equipment, Class 00 rubber insulating gloves.
• The standards adopt new requirements for electrical pro-
tective equipment made of materials other than rubber.
Foot Protection
• In addition to revising the Electric Power Generation,
Transmission, and Distribution, and the Electrical Protec-
tive Equipment standards, OSHA also revised the Gen-
eral Industry Foot Protection standard to clarify that an
employer must ensure that workers use protective footwear
as a supplementary form of protection when the use of
protective footwear will protect the workers from electrical
hazards, such as static-discharge or electric-shock hazards,
that remain after the employer takes other necessary pro-
tective measures.
Additional information on the final rule is available at http://
.
Safety Watch
Continued from page 9
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