It is January 20, 2021, and the country is in the midst of a resurgence of the COVID-19 virus. The Conference Committee, in consultation with the NETA Board of Directors, has decided to go totally virtual with PowerTest 2021, the premier electrical maintenance and safety conference intended for all electrical professionals and especially beneficial for field service technicians, inspectors, utility …
Although it can readily be overlooked, an important and fundamental consideration in any electrical application is safety, and one of the most effective tools in the application of safety is redundancy. If one safeguard fails, there’s another right there to act as a safety net. There’s hardly a greater necessity for redundant safety than in a substation, where arcing could …
Effective ground testing is an informed combination of instrumentation and procedure. Accuracy, resolution, safety, noise suppression, graphics, clamp features, and general reliability are all critical, as they are with any electrical testing. But effective and accurate ground testing depends as much on adherence to procedure as it does on quality of instrumentation. If the operator does not understand and diligently …
This edition of Tech Quiz covers protective relays. Many years ago, as I was teaching a protective relay class, a student asked, “What are these things?” I replied, “Relays,” to which he answered, “No, relays are those little black plastic things that go click-click.” I made sure to call them protective relays from then on. Things in the protective relaying …
Fall protection requirements and equipment varies depending upon where the work is being performed. The regulations can be confusing for some employees, so it is up to the manager or safety professional to understand the work, the environment the work is being performed in, and the equipment needed to mitigate the hazard of falling from height. When Is Protection Required? …
Relay personnel responsible for testing protective relays are often called upon to troubleshoot and gather system data such as settings and event recordings when a major event occurs (for this example, a large generator trip). If only electromechanical relays are installed and no digital fault recorder is available, it can be difficult to determine the root cause of the trip …
In this issue of NETA World, we begin to explain some of the major changes in the 2021 edition of NFPA 70E. So whether you love the 70E, or find it a challenge and don’t want to deal with it…because your life at work is mandated by it, and you know what that means: Do it or else! But that …
This edition of NETA World features articles on electrical power system protection. Protection schemes covering feeder, generation, transmission, and transformers may have many similarities, but they often contain specific functions or schemes unique to that type of equipment. Be sure you check out this edition’s four feature articles: “Challenges in Transformer Protection Testing,” by Scott Cooper of OMICRON electronics “Testing …
First, let’s look at some industry-accepted definitions to establish context. Low voltage is anything below 1 kV. The common building-wiring voltages are 120, 240, 480, and 600 V. To the uninitiated, this can seem confusing and even ridiculous. Get across 600 V, and it can fry you like bacon, but in industry parlance, it is still low voltage. Put into …
Cable testing is one of the oldest forms of testing in the industry. At first, cables were tested using DC voltages, but this was found to damage newer cable types, so additional cable testing methods were developed. This issue’s Tech Quiz takes a look at cable testing. 1. During the early years of cable testing, which two primary types of …