Electricity can kill or causes serious injury to the individual and damage to equipment.  Arc flash safety is a very important issue to all electrical personnel working on or near electrical equipment.
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Designed specifically for the wind turbine industry, the course highlights the safe working procedures of high/low voltage switchgear operations that are connected to wind turbines. The training programme includes practical exercises and competency assessment using a wide range of high voltage switchgear, supporting theoretical instructions complying with the UK and EU safety legislation.
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Click here to check our course dates for 2012.

New high voltage safety courses applicable to marine and offshore power systems have been recently developed.  The new courses have been developed in line with I.M.C.A. (International Marine Contractors Association) syllabus and are accredited by The Faraday Centre Ltd.
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Training companies, in common with all businesses, are only as good as their staff and their physical resources.

Our Stephenson Court high voltage facility has been very busy, therefore, we decided to install another high voltage system at our nearby Davy building.

This project is near completion and allows us to use both buildings for training to ensure candidates are not overcrowded. Simultaneously, we have included some different types of switchgear, including switchpanels supplied by ABB and specially modified for training purposes. We appreciate their excellent co-operation. These are:

• One unigear ZSI withdrawable 11kV circuit breaker.
• One unigear 500R ENA fixed pattern 11kV circuit breaker,
• One unigear motor starter with a VSC vacuum contractor

The above are fitted with micro processor protection typical of both beach and marine applications.

This project cost over £150,000 pounds and was undertaken without UK or EU funding. But it is necessary to provide our clients with high quality training.

How do we ensure that all important facility functions are protected from power failures, particularly on board vessels or offshore platforms? Are you prepared for the unexpected?

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Electrical testing is inconvenient in that it takes specialist manpower to carry out and requires a vast array of test equipment, both of which cost a considerable amount of money. In addition it takes time which ultimately delays the energisation of the electrical apparatus. Therefore it is necessary to ask “Why Test?” and in doing so to justify the act of testing.

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Also see IEE 17th Edition Amendment 1 course

Amendment 1 comes into force in January 2012 and brings in over 700 changes to the current Regulations. Two new sections arrive in the main body of the Regulations and two more in Part 7. Technical and printing errors and omissions from the original publication have been corrected. As this is a formal amendment, a full reprint of the Standard is required and will be published, with a green cover, from July 2011.

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Duty of care: The Health and Safety at Work Act and the Electricity at Work Regulations (EWR) make numerous references to employer and employees having a “duty of care” for the health and safety of others in the work environment. In this context the EWR refers to a person as the duty holder. The phrase recognises the level of responsibility which electricians are expected to make on a part of their job in order to control electrical safety in the work environment. Everyone has duty of care, but not everyone is the duty holder. The regulations recognise the amount of control that an individual might exercise over the whole electrical installation. The person who exercises “control over the whole systems equipment and conductors,” and is the company’s electrical representative onsite is the duty holder.

He/she might be a supervisor, but he/she will have a duty of care on behalf of his/her employer for the electrical, health, safety and environmental issues on the site.

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In general, switchgear has a proven record of reliability and performance. Failures are quite rare but, when they do occur, the results are often catastrophic. Death or serious injury to personnel, major damage to plant and buildings in the vicinity are often commonplace following such occurrences. This is why personnel requiring access to areas containing high voltage apparatus, should be authorised to do so. This does not necessarily mean that anybody entering a substation or switch room must be a senior authorised person, it does mean however, that they should hold individual authorisation for access.

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