BUILDING SOLUTIONS

ARC FLASH AND ELECTRICAL SAFETY

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• An instantaneous trip
A lower fault value may not setting.
• An instantaneous
trip an upstream protective override.
• Approved equivalent
device whereas a higher fault means.

value may instantaneously trip the In addition, the consult-

ing engineer should consider

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upstream protective device. the location of the electri-
cal equipment as placing
equipment within an electri-
Guide for Performing Arc- cal room normally restricts
Flash Hazard Calculations for access to qualified personnel
a full purview of the full meth- FIGURE 1: Sample arc flash label for whereas equipment located
equipment. Courtesy: SmithGroup within a hallway may elicit
ods that are used when calcu-
lating arc flash. safety concerns with unquali-
Simply put, the incident energy of an arc flash is fied occupants.
a calculation of fault current and clearing time at the With the performed arc flash analysis, labels
overcurrent protective device. It should be noted, should be created and attached to each respective
however, that a higher fault current may not elicit a piece of equipment to identify the incident energy,
higher incident energy due to the clearing time of a arc flash boundary, nominal system voltage, device
fault. A lower fault value may not trip an upstream name and PPE required (see Figure 1).
protective device whereas a higher fault value may
instantaneously trip the upstream protective device. Safety in electrical rooms
For this reason, a coordination study should be The purpose of an electrical room is to house
performed to determine how each individual cir- electrical equipment, providing a space that
cuit breaker trips under each individual fault con- is both safe and secure for the operations and
dition (single line-to-ground, line-to-line, 3-pole, maintenance of the electrical equipment and
etc.). only accessible to authorized personnel. Electri-
An engineer should exhaust all possibilities to cal equipment ratings and types can significant-
lessen the potential incident energy of an arc flash ly affect the room requirements. Switchboards,
by modifying circuit breaker settings, limiting fault switchgear, transformers, generators, uninterrupt-
current when possible or adding additional pro- ible power supplies (UPS) and low- and medi-
tective devices within the electrical system. When um-voltage ratings all impact the requirements for
Insights
u
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the aforementioned techniques have been per-
formed, there are various equipment components
an electrical room.
NEC Article 110, Part II (1,000 V and below)
and accessories that can be procured to mitigate and Part III (more than 1,000 V) is the primary
Electrical safety the potential hazard. source of these requirements.
uElectrical safety NEC article 240.67 and 240.87 provide guidance Coordination with architectural requirements
requires several areas of
expertise: System design,
for arc energy reduction. Specifically, 240.87 pro- centers on electrical room space needs including
arc flash mitigation, vides methods to reduce the clearing time (breaker working space around and above the equipment
room design, testing trip) to minimizing arc flash. These include: and access to and from the electrical room. Work-
and commissioning and
egress lighting. ing space is based on NEC Table 110.26(A)(1) and
uMitigating arc flash
• Zone-selective interlocking. Table 110.31(A) from the 2020 NEC. Table 2 com-
incidents often becomes • Differential relaying. bines this information along with typical system
the No. 1 challenge and • Energy-reducing maintenance switching. voltage nomenclatures.
adherence to codes and
standards ensures proper • Energy-reducing active arc flash mitigation Table 110-16(A)(1) has three conditions. These
design. system. conditions consider the distance from the accessible

48 | March/April 2024 consulting-Specifying engineer — www.csemag.com