NOTE The program applies to electrical equipment and circuits operating at 50 V or more, alternating or direct current, from 120 V branch circuits through 15 kV distribution. (1.2)

NOTE NFPA 70E sets 50 V as the threshold below which a written electrical safety program and the associated shock and arc flash protection requirements are not triggered. Above that threshold the full apparatus of risk assessment, boundaries, permits, and PPE applies, scaling in rigor with voltage and available fault current rather than switching on only at high voltage. (1.3)

NOTE The program covers hazard identification and arc flash risk assessment methodology, boundary and incident-energy labeling, energized electrical work permit (EEWP) procedures, lockout/tagout (LOTO), PPE selection, qualified-person work boundaries, training, and the program review cycle. (1.4)

NOTE This program consumes the output of the arc flash study; it does not specify the engineering calculation methodology. (1.5)

NOTE Incident energy, available fault current, clearing time, and the resulting PPE category for each piece of equipment are produced by the short-circuit study, the protective device coordination study, and the arc flash calculation. Those analyses are owned by Arc Flash Study and Short Circuit Study. This standard governs how that output is labeled, who may work inside the resulting boundaries, what permits and PPE are required, and how the program is maintained. (1.6)

NOTE Owner-furnished and contractor-submitted programs are both within scope. (1.7)

NOTE On many construction projects the Owner maintains a facility electrical safety program and each electrical contractor must either work under it or submit an equivalent program for review. This standard defines the content both must contain and the equivalency review that reconciles them, so that site-wide safety coverage has no gaps where one contractor's procedures fall short of the Owner's. (1.8)

NOTE The 2024 edition introduced the requirement for a second qualified person during all justified energized work under a permit, and a hearing-protection mandate within the arc flash boundary. Programs still written to the 2021 edition omit both. The edition is named explicitly here so that submittals cannot satisfy this standard by citing a superseded edition. (2.4)

NOTE NFPA 70E and OSHA 1910.332 define a qualified person by demonstrated ability, not by job title or seniority. The definition is task- and equipment-specific: a worker qualified on 480 V panelboards is not automatically qualified on 15 kV switchgear. The program's roster must therefore record the equipment classes and voltage ranges each person is qualified for, not a blanket designation. (4.5)

NOTE The risk assessment is the gate that decides whether work proceeds energized or de-energized, what boundaries apply, and what PPE is required. It is performed for the specific task and equipment condition (covers on versus removed, doors open versus closed), not once for the facility. The facility arc flash study supplies the incident energy and boundary numbers; the task-level assessment applies them to the work actually being done. (5.2)

NOTE The PPE category number (1 through 4) and the incident energy value in cal/cm² are not interchangeable. When a study reports incident energy, the field selection is made against the actual calculated value at the labeled working distance. Treating a 12 cal/cm² result as "Category 2 because it is over 8" misreads the methods and can under-protect the worker. (5.6)

NOTE The category table covers a defined set of equipment types, voltages, available fault currents, and clearing times. Tasks or equipment outside those parameters - including many medium-voltage configurations and any equipment whose fault current or clearing time exceeds the table's stated limits - have no valid category entry. Such tasks require the incident energy analysis method. Defaulting the whole facility to the category table without checking coverage is a common and dangerous error. (5.8)

NOTE 1.2 cal/cm² is the onset of a second-degree burn on unprotected skin. The arc flash boundary marks where a worker without arc-rated protection would receive that exposure during an arc event, and is calculated per IEEE 1584-2018 for each equipment location. (5.11)

NOTE NEC 110.16(B), added for industrial occupancies in the 2023 NEC, makes the label more prescriptive than the prior general-warning-only requirement. The label must carry the data the worker needs at the point of work: nominal voltage, the arc flash boundary, the incident energy or required PPE, the working distance the incident energy was calculated at, the available short-circuit current, and the protective device clearing time. A label missing the working distance is non-compliant because the incident energy is only valid at that distance. (6.3)

NOTE The limited approach boundary is the distance from an exposed energized conductor within which a shock hazard exists. (6.7)

NOTE The restricted approach boundary is the distance within which shock protection techniques and equipment are required. (6.9)

NOTE A label can only be printed once the incident energy and boundaries are known, and those depend on the upstream studies in Arc Flash Study and Short Circuit Study. Installing placeholder or pre-study labels creates a false sense of compliance and exposes workers to wrong PPE selections. Label production is therefore sequenced after the study, not concurrent with equipment delivery. (6.12)

NOTE Labels derived from a superseded study are non-compliant the moment the study changes, because the incident energy, boundary, or clearing time the worker relies on no longer matches the installed system. The program must tie label replacement to the study update cycle so a system change never leaves stale labels in service. Label graphics, fonts, and materials beyond arc flash content are governed by Equipment Labeling. (6.14)

NOTE NFPA 70E 130.2 sets a strict justification standard. "It would take too long to shut down" or "the schedule does not allow an outage" are not acceptable. The justification must be safety- or feasibility-based: interrupting life-support or critical ventilation, a continuous process that cannot be interrupted without greater hazard, or equipment that genuinely cannot be tested de-energized. The permit forces that justification to be written down and approved before work, not asserted after. (7.3)

NOTE The 2024 edition of NFPA 70E requires a second qualified person for energized work under a permit, both to assist with the task and to be positioned to release emergency response if an incident occurs. Programs written to earlier editions omit this and must be updated. The second person is a permit condition, not a discretionary addition. (7.5)

NOTE LOTO is the default path to safe work and the alternative the EEWP justification is measured against. The written procedure defines, for each equipment category, where energy is isolated, how it is locked and tagged, how stored energy is released, and how the absence of voltage is verified before work. NFPA 70E Article 120 and OSHA 1910.147 both require a written, equipment-specific procedure rather than a generic notice. (8.2)

NOTE The construction standard differs from general industry. 1926.417 requires circuits to be rendered inoperative and tagged at all points of energization during construction work; its requirements are not identical to 1910.147. A specification that copies general-industry LOTO language verbatim without the construction citation leaves a gap during the build phase, when much of the energized-adjacent work actually occurs. (8.4)

NOTE A single-person LOTO procedure is insufficient when several contractors work the same equipment at once, because any one worker removing a lock could re-energize the circuit on the others. Group lockout - a lockout box or hasp that holds every affected worker's individual lock, with no single person able to release the energy alone - is required wherever multi-craft or multi-contractor work overlaps on one piece of equipment. (8.7)

NOTE OSHA 1910.147(c)(6) requires the employer to inspect each energy control procedure at least annually to verify that workers are following it and that the procedure remains adequate. The inspection is documented and identifies the procedure, the workers included, and the inspector. On long-duration construction this falls within the project; the program must schedule it rather than assume the facility's annual cycle covers project-specific procedures. (8.11)

NOTE Arc-rated and flame-resistant (FR) are not synonyms. All arc-rated clothing is FR, but not all FR clothing has been tested and assigned an arc thermal performance value (ATPV) or breakopen threshold (EBT). Specifying "any FR clothing" without a minimum arc rating per category permits garments that have never been arc-tested. Each garment must carry a documented cal/cm² rating meeting or exceeding the category minimum. (9.3)

NOTE Category 2 is the most common configuration for commercial panelboard and MCC work. (9.7)

NOTE The 2024 edition of NFPA 70E requires hearing protection for everyone inside the arc flash boundary, recognizing that the acoustic energy of an arc blast can cause hearing damage independent of the thermal hazard. This applies to observers and assistants within the boundary, not only the worker on the equipment. (9.11)

NOTE Chlorine bleach, fabric softeners, and high-temperature industrial laundering can strip or mask the flame-resistant treatment of arc-rated garments, reducing the arc rating without any visible change. The program must specify laundering that preserves the rating and prohibit consumer additives that compromise it. (9.14)

NOTE OSHA 1910.332 and NFPA 70E both make training the foundation of qualified-person status. The content must be specific to the hazards the worker faces and the equipment worked, and must include emergency response, because the person best positioned to act after an arc or shock incident is the trained co-worker already on site. (10.3)

NOTE A new transformer, an upgraded service, a relay setting change, or a breaker replacement can move incident energy and boundaries up or down. The five-year interval is a ceiling, not a license to ignore changes within it. Equipment maintenance condition, addressed in NFPA 70B, also affects clearing time: a breaker that no longer clears in its rated time raises incident energy even with no design change. The program ties re-evaluation to the change, not only to the calendar. (11.3)

NOTE An unreviewed contractor program creates a gap in site-wide coverage: the contractor may use different boundaries, different PPE assignments, or a weaker LOTO procedure than the facility requires. The equivalency review confirms the contractor's program meets or exceeds the Owner's on every element of this standard, or directs the contractor to work under the Owner's program instead. Acceptance testing and energization of the installed equipment remain governed by Electrical Acceptance Testing. (11.6)