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...

1. PERSONAL FALL ARREST SYSTEMS

(A) GENERAL TEST CONDITIONS

Lifelines, lanyards, and deceleration devices should be attached to an anchorage and connected to the body-belt or body harness in the same manner as they would be when used to protect employees, except that lanyards should be tested only when connected directly to the anchorage, and not when connected to a lifeline.
The anchorage should be rigid, and should not have a deflection greater than .04 inches (1 cm) when a force of 2,250 pounds (10.01 Kn) is applied.
The frequency response of the load measuring instrumentation should be 100 Hz.
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