Incident Energy Report – What you need to know

Wow, that was bad.
Near the end of October I was shown a very poorly written Incident Energy Report.  The reason that it was given to us, a competing consulting firm, was that we designed the system and on of the action items listed was regarding the size of the transformer protection.  They said it was [...]

High Fault Contribution may not be a bad thing

In the past you determined the bus withstand of equipment by the bolted fault.  In some cases the system would be designed to limit the available fault energy on any one bus by installing higher impedance transformers, multiple small transformers, etc.
Today there is as much concern regarding the Incident Energy (IE) released in an arc [...]

Reducing Arc Flash Hazards

When an Arc Flash Study, currently being referred to an Incident Energy Study, is completed owners and operators start to look for ways to minimize the workers exposure to high incident energies.  One of the ways that this can be done is to ensure that all work is completed in a zero energy state.
This is [...]

What is Arc Flash?

An arcing fault, which is the cause of an arc flash is described below.
Arcing faults (an Arc Flash) are defined as high-impedance faults, since any fault current must travel through air, as opposed to the low-impedance path normally associated with a short circuit. A short circuit study of the electrical system is required to determine [...]

The primary causes of Arc Flash

Potential causes of an Arc Flash or Arcing Fault may include:

Workers mistakenly dropping tools on live parts
Pests entering switchgear through openings
Faulty operation of a load break switch
Dust or moisture accumulating to weaken air insulated bus bars
Improper use of test equipment

From personal experience onsite and reading incident reports, the last three are the ones that are [...]