Increasing electrical safety by reducing the risk of arc flash hazards

The risk of arc flashes in power distribution equipment has long been recognized as a serious hazard in the petroleum and chemical industry. This paper will explore the methodology one company used to systematically reduce the risk of personnel injury due to arc flash on its existing facilities and a new project. The process includes incorporating procedures and technologies that allow for minimizing the need to work on or near energized equipment, moving essential work tasks to safe distances, and eliminating or reducing the arc flash potential. There are multiple products that can be installed to prevent or reduce the risk and severity of arc flashes by one of the methods mentioned above. This paper will describe some of these available methods, give examples of how they were retrofitted to existing facilities, and how they were incorporated into the design of a new facility. As a result, the Company was able to successfully lower all of the calculated incident energies of their equipment to below 40 cal/cm². The process of identifying the hazards, the selection of technologies to reduce the hazard, or move the technician away from the hazard, the installation and end results will all be described.