Transmission Business Electrical Incident & Safety Performance Reporting Guide

Transcription

1 Transmission Business Electrical Incident & Safety Performance Reporting Guide December 2011 Version 1.0

2 Energy Safe Victoria PO Box 262 Collins Street West MELBOURNE VIC 8007 AUSTRALIA Telephone (03) Facsimile (03) The following Victorian Electrical Network Operators were consulted when preparing these guidelines: SP Australia Networks (Transmission) Ltd Basslink Version Date Change Description Author Approval /12/11 Final version G. Jackson N. Murray Page 1

3 1. GENERAL Part of ESV s function is to investigate events or incidents which have implications for electrical safety and to advise the electricity industry and the community in relation to electricity safety. To protect people from risk and to take action to reduce injury to persons or damage to property under those functions, ESV keeps a record of all electrical incidents reported. The information gained from these reports, and subsequent investigations, is used to determine the cause of an incident and to implement remedial action to reduce the risk in the future. The remedial action may include the revision of regulations, providing information and guidance to special interest groups or the public in general, or the establishment of special committees to set rules for improving safety. These Guidelines provide the Transmission Companies, who are major electricity companies (MECs) as defined in the Act, with guidance on the application of the Electricity Safety Act and Regulations 27 and 28 of the Electricity Safety (Management) Regulations 2009 (the Regulations ) when reporting incidents involving their assets. ESV must be notified of serious electrical incidents as a requirement of the Electricity Safety Act. Failure to report such an incident is a serious breach of the Act. Following are contact details (in order of priority) for immediate reporting of fatal or serious electrical incidents to ESV:- EMERGENCY CALL (24 HOURS) BACK UP (24 HOURS) (03) Page 2

4 2. DEFINITIONS all relevant details as soon as practicable business day failure fire all of the relevant details of the incident within the knowledge of the person reporting the incident is immediately after making any necessary contact with emergency services, usually a phone call is a day other than a Saturday or Sunday or a public holiday under the Public Holidays Act 1993 is the inability to function as designed is a process in which substances combine chemically with oxygen from the air and typically give out bright light, heat, and smoke, combustion or a destructive burning of something for reporting purposes, any evidence of charring, smouldering, smoke, melting, etc. shall also be considered when declaring a fire occurrence imminent risk of electrocution injured / injury medical attention non-serious injury non-serious electrical incident is any incident that has had the potential to electrocute a person is bodily harm requiring medical attention is medical treatment by a registered medical practitioner other than a precautionary check or first aid treatment is bodily harm that does not require medical attention is an electrical incident involving electricity that is not a serious electrical incident Page 3

5 serious electrical incident is an incident involving electricity which causes or has the potential to cause:- (a) the death of or injury to a person; or (b) significant damage to property; or (c) a serious risk to public safety (As defined in the Act) and if the incident:- (a) causes the death of or injury to a person; or (b) causes significant property damage; or (c) causes significant disruption to the community; or (d) involves a transmission line; or (e) involves an imminent risk of electrocution. (As defined in the Regulations) serious risk to public safety includes:- risk of personal injury property damage that may directly or indirectly cause personal injury or significant damage to property property damage by high voltage injection or direct current voltage injection incident serious enough to warrant on site action to mitigate risk to the public by Police, Ambulance Service, Melbourne Fire and Emergency Service Board, Country Fire Authority, Victorian WorkCover Authority, a statutory body or an emergency service provider significant damage to property includes:- any fire damage > $250,000 damage to property other than network assets. (This excludes damage to vehicles as a result of collision with network assets without electricity going astray) damage that has potential for significant public or media interest damage serious enough to warrant on site action to mitigate risk to the public by Police, Ambulance Service, Melbourne Fire and Emergency Service Board, Country Fire Authority, Victorian WorkCover Authority, a statutory body or an emergency service provider Page 4

6 significant disruption to the community includes:- any supply interruption (planned or unplanned) resulting in outage to a distribution customer or customers (66kV and below) asset failure resulting in significant disruption to vehicle or public transport traffic Page 5

7 3. REPORTING BY TRANSMISSION BUSINESS TO ESV 3.1 Actions to be taken by a Transmission Business regarding relevant details within its knowledge of any serious electrical incident associated with its Network (Section 142(1) & (2) and Regulation 27(2)) INCIDENT If as a result of any serious electrical incident; where a person is killed or injured; or significant damage to property has occurred; or significant disruption to the community has occurred; or tower collapse or any other serious incident involving a transmission line or transmission asset; or an incident serious enough to warrant on site action by a statutory body or emergency service providers to mitigate risk to the public accidental contact with live overhead HV conductors or exposed live HV underground cables has occurred by any person; or ground or vegetation fires caused by the asset irrespective of area burnt; or fires caused by the asset on assets themselves (excluding hot joints ); or any other serious incident that may have had reasonable potential to electrocute a person NOTIFICATION AND REPORT BY TRANSMISSION BUSINESS (a) As soon as practicable report to ESV by telephone all relevant details; and (b) Follow up with a completed Electrical Incident Confirmation Form (see Schedule 1) sent to ESV by facsimile or within 2 business days of the telephone report; and (c) Send by facsimile, surface mail or a completed Electrical Incident Report Form (see Schedule 2) to ESV within 20 business days of the telephone report Page 6

8 3.2 Actions to be taken by a Transmission Business regarding relevant details within its knowledge of any other serious electrical incident not noted above associated with its Network (Section 142(1) & (2) and Regulation 27(2)) INCIDENT If as a result of any serious electrical incident; where any person receives an electric shock as a result of direct or indirect contact with any network assets or an electrical installation (excludes emf discharge from body to earth structure); or live overhead bare conductors are on the ground or at severely reduced clearances to the ground; or tree or tree branch or other object has been caused to contact live conductor by any person; or uncontrolled release of live conductor by MEC work party; or property damage by high voltage injection (ac or dc) REPORT BY TRANSMISSION BUSINESS Send by facsimile, surface mail or a completed Electrical Incident Report Form (see Schedule 2) to ESV within 20 business days of becoming aware of the incident 3.3 Actions to be taken by a Transmission Business regarding relevant details within its knowledge of non-serious electrical incident associated with its Network INCIDENT Human operating errors involving primary plant (remote and field operation). Includes earths left on, operation of incorrect item, incorrect sequence of operation, inadvertent protection trips while testing. Incorrect protection operation (failure to operate as designed. Includes nonoperation of protection when there is a fault, backup protection operation instead of primary, incorrect settings or failed protection item); or Live Line Incidents; or Breach of any part of the Blue Book (sections 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10); or Any electrical incident causing nonserious injury (eg. minor flash burns, etc) to MEC personnel (includes contractors) REPORT BY TRANSMISSION BUSINESS Send a summary report to ESV at end of each quarter. As a minimum, the summary report is to include:- Date of incident Location of incident Cause of incident Work party involved (eg. MEC crew, MEC contractors, external contractors, etc) Other factors (eg weather, equipment, training, etc) relevant to the event Page 7

9 4. OTHER INCIDENTS TO BE REPORTED QUARTERLY IN A STATISTICAL SUMMARY ESV also requests the following information for the purposes of determining compliance with the Electricity Safety Act 1998 and the Regulations ITEM CLASS INCIDENT DEFINITION Asset failures resulting in a) Tower failure a) Number of tower failures resulting in grass/vegetation fires grass/vegetation fire b) Conductor failure b) Number of fires due to conductor failure resulting in grass/vegetation fires c) Plant failure c) Number of grass/vegetation fires resulting from failures of plant d) Other Assets d) Number of grass/vegetation fires resulting from failures of any asset not listed above Contact with assets (non-asset failures) resulting in grass/vegetation fire a) Fire starts in grass/vegetation resulting from animal contact with network assets b) Fire starts in grass/vegetation caused by contact between vegetation and the asset c) Fire starts in grass/vegetation resulting from other causes a) Number of fire starts in grass/vegetation resulting from animal contact with network assets (including bird/wildlife falling into vegetation). b) Number of fire starts in grass/vegetation caused by contact between vegetation and the asset c) Number of fire starts in grass/vegetation resulting from other causes (eg. vehicle strikes, vandalism, etc) Asset failures resulting in asset fire (no grass/vegetation fire) a) Plant fire a) Number of fires on or in plant resulting from failures of plant b) Other Assets b) Number of asset fires resulting from failures of any asset not listed above Asset failure (no fire) a) Conductor failure (includes any tension section eg. terminations, compression joints, etc. Excludes strand broken and non-tension sections eg. bridges, etc) a) Number of conductor breakages (not related to external impact) b) Tower failure b) Number of tower failures c) Tower Steel Member failure or collapse (includes outage related or maintenance related) c) Number of failures (not related to external impact) Page 8

10 d) Primary Plant failure d) Number of primary plant failures e) Insulator failure (ie below minimum creepage) e) Number of insulators failed (includes insulator or insulator sets below minimum creepage, broken insulator, conductor unattached, etc.) f) Dislodged asset f) Any asset dislodged from its supporting structure not included above Vegetation related faults (no fire start) a) Vegetation (tree/branch) falling or vegetation in contact with live assets a) Number of reports of vegetation contacting live assets (no fire start) Works Practices a) No Go Zone infringements a) Number of infringements. Includes contact with overhead conductors and reported cases of work within the NGZ area (overhead and underground). Bushfire Mitigation Community Safety a) Grass/Vegetation fires started by MEC asset in Hazardous Bushfire Risk Areas (HBRA) a) Number of Grass/Vegetation fires started by MEC asset in HBRA a) Vehicle impact with assets a) Number of reported instances where vehicles have struck MEC assets b) Unauthorised access transmission stations b) Instances of unauthorised access to transmission stations (terminal stations, switchyards and converter stations) (eg. Break in) c) Unauthorised access transmission line towers c) Instances of unauthorised access to transmission line towers (eg. Persons climbing towers, etc) Page 9

11 5. ESV ANNUAL PUBLIC REPORT ESV also requests the following information for the purposes of creating an annual report. Statistics based on calendar year (Jan Dec) ITEM Fire starts in vegetation (grass/trees & shrubs) Conductor failure Tower failure No Go Zone Infringements Unauthorised access Fatal injury (electrical causes), MEC workers Serious injury (electrical causes), MEC workers Electric shocks (minor or no injury) from MEC assets Submission of Statutory Plans (BMPs, ELCMPs, etc) Submission of Incident Information REPORTING REQUIREMENT Number of fire starts in vegetation (All fires due to electrical causes) Number of conductor failures Number of tower failures Number of incidents Number of incidents Number of incidents (Includes contractors) Number of incidents (Includes contractors) Electric shocks from MEC assets Number of plans submitted on time (commentary by ESV) % of Schedule 1 & 2 incident reports on time (commentary by ESV) Page 10

12 APPENDIX A EXAMPLES OF REPORTING REQUIREMENTS The table below provides some examples of incidents that may occur and the reporting classification of the incident. This is not an exhaustive list and is for general guidance only. If there is any doubt regarding an incident and reporting classification then ESV should be contacted for assistance. INCIDENT Mobile plant makes contact with live high voltage conductors no injury or asset failure involved Tractor strikes tower leg. Minor bend in steel member of support leg. REPORTING REQUIREMENT Refer section 3.1 reported as accidental contact with live overhead conductors or exposed live underground cables has occurred by any person Refer section 4 Community Safety (Vehicle impact) Vehicle impacts security fence of terminal station Person climbs past the anti-climbing device on transmission line tower Transformer bushing failure resulting in fire ignition of the oil of the transformer Shock (no injury) received by person in vehicle in terminal station switchyard (via induction) Damaged line insulator from vandalism (eg. gun shot) Refer section 4 Community Safety (Unauthorised access transmission line towers) Refer section 3.1 and section 4 reported as a fire on the asset and counted in the quarterly statistics (Fire on the asset, no ground fire) Refer section 3.2 and section 5 reported as shock from indirect contact and counted in annual statistics (electric shock) Not mandatory to report incident. Page 11