Safe electrical isolation procedures

The correct electrical isolation procedure goes a long way to ensuring that the people working on and maintaining your electrical (and other energy-charged equipment) remain safe.

It's also a great way to ensure that the equipment and infrastructure being worked on is managed properly.

Before isolating any services or equipment, check with the relevant person and make sure that those services can be disrupted at that time - and for the duration of works. Once this is all cleared and you are complying with the permits to work and other activities, you can begin your electrical isolation procedure - before beginning work.

Where practicable, before any plant is inspected, maintained, cleaned or repaired, it's energy sources must be locked out and tagged.

The most common energy source is electricity, but other energy sources which can require isolating include hydraulic pressure, kinetic tension, other moving parts and compressed gas.

The purpose of isolating any and all of these energy sources and machinery is to ensure that an accidental 'release' of energy does not occur; to control the environment and other hazards associated with that work; and to ensure that entry or contact with restricted equipment or areas is regulated and controlled.

The right electrical isolation procedure

Creating a structured and systematic approach to electrical isolations - at the individual, project and organisational level enable you to reduce risk and mitigate the chance of accident occurring.

The more standardised and 'codified' your process is, the easier it is to constantly iterate and keep improving your isolation and safety outcomes.

Phase 1

Before the actual isolation begins, you must ensure that you have the permit to perform the isolation - or the permit to work. This permit is relatively straightforward. The permit should include some general instructions about the isolation, and feature the date and time of work, the scope of works being proposed, the location of work and the isolation purpose.

After this, your permit to work should document and explain which equipment will be isolated, before the permit applicant and permit authoriser signoff to begin work.

Once you have signed off on the electrical isolation permit, you are all systems go on beginning the isolation procedure.

The first parts of the actual lockout procedure involve shutting down the machinery or equipment which will be inspected, maintained or repaired.

This step should also include identifying all relevant energy sources as well as secondary sources, such as standby generators, uninterruptible power supplies and microgenerators.