Electricity Today T&D Magazine

How Ontario regulation can improve electrical safety

BY BILL KHASHFE, London Hydro

According to an Ontario Electrical Safety Report, 35 percent of the province’s electrical-related fatalities in the past 10 years were attributed to power-line contact. Equipment specifications and electric utility construction plans within Ontario’s power industry, only a few decades ago, lacked regulation. Each utility developed its own policies.

Currently, the global economy has created a marketplace in which equipment is manufactured to various standards and, occasionally, with no standards at all. As a result, governments have started to step in to regulate the safety of equipment used...

How to reduce dangers while providing preventive maintenance data

BY FINLEY LEDBETTER, Group CBS, Inc.

While most discussions about avoiding electrical hazards focus on personal protective equipment (PPE), utility workers have a number of ways to protect themselves and their gear, including specialized equipment and remote actuation and racking systems that eliminate—rather than reduce—electrical hazard dangers, while providing preventive maintenance data that can help avoid future catastrophes.