Readings / Arc Flash Safety Regulation

“Night View of Cherry Blossoms in Shin Yoshiwara” c. 1889 / Los Angeles County Museum of Art / Artist: Inoue Yasuji / Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Felix Juda

IEEE Standards Coordinating Committee 18 is charged with reconciling electrotechnology standards action between two dominant electrical safety cultures in the United States:

• The National Fire Protection Association’s NFPA 70-suite which primarily covers fire safety of electrical systems 34.5 kilovolts and below within buildings.   This culture is dominated by fire safety experts but has a significant revenue stream that originated in the fact and perception that electricity was a fire hazard. 
• IEEE suite of electrical power safety codes and recommended practices for electrical safety at all voltage levels — from micro-voltages to upwards of 1000 kilovolts within and and outside buildings.  This culture is dominated by utility engineers with expertise at higher voltages to which the general public is exposed outside buildings.  

The consensus documents produced by these two electrical safety cultures are usually incorporated by reference into local and state public safety laws.  For the most part, all safety and sustainability requirements for user interests, and what practices will set the standard of care for the US education industry and others, will appear on the agenda of IEEE SCC-18

The years 2018 and 2019 are active years for NFPA-70 and the IEEE technical committees.  The IEEE Power Engineering and Industrial Applications Society, which has a near 100 year tenure in electrical power systems safety and sustainability for all US industries, are dealing with a coincident revision cycle of the 2020 National Electrical Code and the ANSI/IEEE C2 National Electrical Safety Code.   Technical and policy experts are engaged in lively leading practice discovery discussion about distributed resources, power-over-ethernet circuits, electric and autonomous vehicles and Internet-of-Things; among others.  The rollout of the emergent #SmartCampus is necessarily an electrotechnical transformation so it is necessary to keep pace with, and to be effective advocates in global safety and sustainability documents produced by the International Electrotechnical Commission.

An illustration from Jules Verne’s short story “La Journée d’un Journaliste Américain en 2889” (In the Year 2889) by George Roux / c. 1910

Standards Michigan has its “door” open every day at 11 AM Eastern time for 1-1 consultation on the entire suite of electrotechnical standards that affect the education facilities industry but twice monthly, concentrates on electrical power and information and communication technology movements.  Movements that happen on a near-hourly basis; hence our identification of the stream standardization and conformity activity.   See our CALENDAR for the next online meetings; open to everyone.   Please note that these teleconferences are coordinated with the IEEE Education & Healthcare Facilities Committee; landing page linked below:

http://sites.ieee.org/icps-ehe/

University of Michigan College of Engineering

Issue: [Various]

Category: Electrical, Telecommunication, #SmartCampus, Information & Communications Technology

Colleagues: Mike Anthony, Robert G. Arno, Christel Hunter, Mario Spina, Jim Harvey, Mike Hiler, David Law

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Archive: IEEE SCC-18 Business