Followers Lead Safety´s Next Generation [Electrical Safety]

Hazard recognition and risk reduction remain high on the IEEE community agenda. In particular, working groups of IEEE volunteers have reconfigured IEEE Standard 902: Guide for Maintenance, Operation, and Safety of Industrial and Commercial Power Systems, also known as The Yellow Book, into a series of electronically retrievable documents intended to be easily obtainable resources for the engineering profession. The base standard, P3000: Recommended Practice for the Engineering of Industrial and Commercial Power Systems, is a milestone achievement. Local, regional, and national professional attitudes have been adapting to wide societal demands for power systems that are integrated, affordable, reliable, and secure. The complexities embedded with such expectations have an exhausting scale. Therefore, institutional commitments to collaboration and international standards harmonization have drawn substantial involvement by the IEEE; nongovernmental organizations including NFPA, CSA, IEC, ANSI, and ASTM; and many regulatory agencies. Research, product development, rule-making around testing, personal protective technologies, and engineering mitigation in response to unintentional electrical arcing hazards demonstrate this convergence.