Legislation that updates New York City Electric Code It has significant implications for workers’ safety.
Photo courtesy Goldman COPELAND
The legislation that updates the New York City Electric Code was promulgated at the end of December, the first update since 2011. Local Law 128 of 2024 It has significant implications for the safety of workers who go to the electricity infrastructure of buildings in New York City and also offers a model for buildings in other cities.
An important change is that now each electric service team located in the building’s electric room, which has a classification of 1200a or more, regardless of the voltage–It is obliged to have a Flash Arc tag, according to NFPA 70E, the electricity safety standard in the workplace. The label specifies security precautions, including protective clothing, that workers must use to serve the appointed team.
A Flash Arc label is generated at the conclusion of an electrical study of the team and is placed on this team. By NEC 2020, section 110.16 (B), the label must contain information as the following: Nominal voltage; Failure Available running to protection devices on service overcurrent; The time of cleaning of the over -governing protection devices of the service based on the current of the failure available on the service equipment and the date on which the label was applied.
The Flash Arc tag causes safety precautions to be very visible and clear. It eliminates any questions about what is needed and, therefore, is crucial for workers’ safety. You need to update every five years.
While the main purpose of the label is workers’ safety, it also shows the insurance companies that these security measures were taken and are easily evident. In case of injuries to the worker, the owner would have evidence that the required safety precautions were in his place.
An electric arc flash study provides a diagram of the electrical system that is being addressed. It also identifies possible mitigation measures that could be taken to reduce energy on a specified team to a lower security threshold. These mitigation measures would only be in areas where energy levels exceed personal protection equipment.
New York City law addresses equipment in the service room, usually a basement electric room, but a owner may want to expand the electric study to cover relevant equipment throughout the building. This equipment, specifically the pane boards, is usually found in the owner’s cabinets, often one closet per floor. The construction of tenants would be responsible for their own panels in their spaces.
Here also the advantages from an insurance perspective are overwhelming. The cost of an electrical study and the generation of arc flash labels is a small fraction of the costs that could be requested in the case of an injured worker in the absence of arc flash labels.
What the new legislation requires is limited to service equipment, because it is there that the electric failure is higher and where the highest risk of safety exists. The risk decreases as one increases in a building, because electricity is reduced due to the distance from the source. However, the benefits of studying and approaching the whole building are maintained.
The legislation provides a year to do the job. It is correct to emphasize the importance of Flash Arc tags.
This view is written by Vinod Palal, director and director of electrical engineering of the New York consulting engineering firm Goldman Copland.
