Scientific and technical council of the company also proposed to express the suggestions to make corrections in “Interbranch rules of labor safety (safety rules) during the operation of power installations”.

IDGC of North-West will review the lists of power transmission lines being under the voltage. Such a decision was taken by the scientific and technical council of the Company during the ordinary meeting in the city of Pskov. The meeting was headed by Georgiy Turlov, Chief Engineer of IDGC of North-West.

According to him, they saw the necessity of correction and determination of the set of paragraphs of  “Labor safety interbranch rules (labor safety rules - LSR) during the operation of power installations”. “The importance of the problem is not only theoretical. The fulfillment of rules is obligatory, but it is not enough, to exclude the risks,” emphasized G. Turlov.

IDGC of North-West specialists were authorized to work out the typical technological maps for works implementation at power transmission lines, being under the pressure, to involve the specialists of profile scientific and research institutes, develop the proposals concerning the inclusion of corrections  to LSR and direct them to the  Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation.

For reference: “Interregional labor safety rules (safety rules - LSR) during the operation of the power installations” were made up in 2001 by Gosenergonadzor - State Energy Supervision, State Power Supply Inspectorate of the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation and JSC “RAO UES of Russia” by the order of the Ministry of Labor and Social Development of the Russian Federation and Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation. The changes were made in February of 2003.

At the scientific and research council meeting, Alexander Maslov, Chief Engineer of “Kolenergo” branch of IDGC of North-West  took the floor, dwelling on  the problem of safety provision during the works at Power Transmission Lines under voltage.

“Nobody prejudices the meeting of the Rules, it is fraught with risks”, he announced. The topic is the additional risks, occurring during the organization of works at the lines under voltage during the realization of the requirements determined by LSR requirements.

For reference:  Overhead line under voltage – OL and aerial line of communication – ALC which occupy the whole length or separate spots not far from the active OL or not far from the connection grid of the electrified road of the alternate current and at the disconnected wires with different schemes of their grounding (as well as when there is no grounding) and with the most working current of the active OL (contact grids), shall possess the capacity of more than 25V. (The definition taken from inter-branch labor safety rules of power installations operation).

“The issue of the provision of the works safety at OL, became more acute when the qualitative determination of voltage level was mentioned in the Editorial Rules as 25 V”, announced Alexander Maslov. Together with this, the amount of overhead lines under voltage was considerably increased. The requirements to skills of the service personnel were also increased.

The special features of work at OLs under voltage is that during the implementation of all the technical activities (regulated in paragraphs 4.15.43-4.15.48 LSR-016-2001) the operation personnel touches the wires which are deliberately under voltage and thus, experiences the risk of electrocution.

“Sad statistics is connected with organization of under voltage works implementation, shows the necessity of correction and determination of the set of paragraphs of Interbranch rules”, thinks “Kolenergo” Chief Engineer.

To prove this, Alexander Maslov, drew attention to the set of publications concerning the rightfulness of Interbranch rules of grounding of OL at the ends and disconnection of loops at anchorage bearings when several teams work at the line.