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Electrical

Departmental procedures and guidelines
Resources
Legislation and other links

The safety of students, staff and others using electrical equipment is of paramount importance and there are legislative requirements that must be followed to ensure electrical safety.

All electrical equipment used in departmental workplaces must be appropriate for the activity and conform to Australian Standard specifications.

In the event of a health and safety incident involving electricity, specific processes must be followed to ensure safety as well as comply with relevant legislation. Refer to the procedure HLS-PR-005: Health and Safety incident recording, notification and management and Health and Safety Incident - Immediate Response Flow Chart for guidance.

Departmental procedures and guidelines

There is a general obligation under Electrical Safety legislation to ensure that all electrical equipment is used safely, protected from damage and that students, staff and others are protected from injury.

Specific requirements for the safe use of electrical equipment are included in the Guide to Managing Electrical Safety in Education Queensland Schools , or view the separate parts of the Guide:

Part 1: Schedule - 4 page summary of electrical safety requirements
Part 2: Quick Reference - 1 page table of testing and tagging and safety switch requirements
Part 3: Manual - comprehensive information about managing electrical safety

Resources

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Legislation and other links

Electrical Safety Act 2002 states that an employer or self-employed person has an obligation to ensure that the person's business or undertaking is conducted in a way that is electrically safe. Employers and self-employed people must ensure electrical equipment is maintained in a safe condition as part of fulfilling their obligations under the Electrical Safety Act 2002.
Electrical Safety Regulation 2002 sets out specific requirements about electrical equipment and installations at a workplace. The regulation covers some of the things that you must do as a minimum. These requirements include:

protecting extension leads and flexible cables from damage
using safety switches in certain situations
inspecting, testing and tagging certain electrical equipment on a regular basis
removing defective equipment from service
removing safety switches from service if they are not working properly
not using double adaptors and piggyback plugs to do certain work
recording and notification of serious electrical incidents and dangerous electrical events

Electrical Safety
ENERGEX
Includes some good tips on electrical safety, where the danger areas lie and how to avoid them.
Ergon Energy

Serious electrical incident:

Section 11 of the Electrical Safety Act 2002 defines a serious electrical incident as incidents caused by electricity resulting in death or shock or injury requiring medical treatment by a doctor.

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Dangerous Electrical Event:

Section 12 of the Electrical Safety Act 2002 defines dangerous electrical events as events involving electrical equipment causing significant property damage with unlicensed or unauthorised work or when unsafe activity or equipment is found.

A dangerous electrical event may arise when:

a person is not electrically safe in a situation involving high voltage electrical equipment, regardless of whether a shock or injury is sustained
someone does electrical work without a licence; unsafely or incorrectly
equipment used for electrical work is faulty.

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This page was last reviewed on 06 Mar 2012 at 03:56PM