07-27-04 -- Mobile Construction Equipment Grounding Study Off to Strong Start
Bethesda, MD -- The Electrical Contracting Foundation’s research project on grounding mobile construction equipment for safety held its first industry task force meeting July 14 in Chicago. Fifteen representatives from line construction firms assembled with University of Kansas researchers to review their preliminary report on defining methods of protecting people and construction equipment in work zones near utility power lines.Principal researcher Thomas E. Glavinich D.E., P.E., summarized the aim of the study as “establishing a scientific basis” for defining safety techniques to protect line construction personnel and equipment from high-voltage hazards. Although these are being referred to for convenience as Protective Grounding (PG), the study is expected to recommend a package of safety measures that include grounding, isolation, and insulation.
“The objective of this Foundation study is to protect line workers on the ground from shock hazards during line construction, upgrades, and maintenance. We’re approaching the project with an open mind, and challenging traditional protection practices that were devised in an earlier time, and under different circumstances,” said Glavinich. “Today’s linemen, groundmen, and equipment operators are working in a different environment that may require new and different work practices to ensure their safety.”
The mobile equipment grounding task force met as part of the Electrical Contracting Foundation’s mid-year meeting to approve new research projects. There was general agreement that the researchers were “still defining what we’re up against,” because the nature of line construction hazards is changing over time. The reasons include higher transmission voltages, restrictive utility shutdown policies, more underground lines, and increasingly-crowded rights-of-way.
Establishing Industry Standards is the Key
The National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA) plans to draw on the results of this Foundation research project to help develop a National Electrical Installation Standard (NEIS) on mobile equipment grounding safety practices. NEIS are a highly regarded family of ANSI-approved construction standards.
“While there are existing standards on high-voltage grounding, they don’t recommend specific PG practices,” commented Brooke Stauffer, executive director for standards and safety at NECA. “Plus, nobody has focused yet on the special challenges posed when you operate heavy equipment like cranes, bulldozers, digger derricks, and bucket trucks around transmission and distribution lines energized at several hundred thousand volts. Our goal is to create NEIS safety standards that will be simple, practical, and easy to implement in the field.”
Second Phase Begins
The Mobile Equipment Grounding Task Force identified several tasks for the University of Kansas team to undertake during the next phase of the study:
· Recruit electrical utilities, and manufacturers of grounding devices and safety equipment, to join the task force.
· Collect more data on causes of deaths and injuries in the line construction industry.
· Focus on the two most common electric utility configurations (delta and grounded wye) rather than attempting to develop Protective Grounding practices suitable for every different type of power system.