Here at NECA (Vic), we are often asked if it is permitted to work on live electrical installations. From a legal perspective, both the Electrical Safety Act (Vic) 1998 and the Electricity Safety (General) Regulations 2019 do make provision for “live work” to occur – provided that “adequate precautions” have been undertaken. A disruption of normal building operations, business downtime or any increased expenses associated with providing temporary power or rescheduling works to out of hours (overtime) should not be considered as acceptable for saying “that no reasonable alternative exists”.
“Adequate precautions” need to include a full risk assessment of the activity and a prepared and implemented SWMS with full management sign off while incorporating risk mitigation controls such as creating clearways and paths of exit, a trained spotter for each worker with CPR and electrical first aid training, applicable PPE for the task, fused test equipment, clearly identified points of supply isolation, appropriate training to undertake the activity, and management supervision.
NECA (Vic’s) view is that – any decision to perform “live work” should always be the absolute last option for such circumstances such as a life safety matter or unavoidable testing and commissioning functions and there needs to be clearly demonstrated evidence that no reasonable alternative exists to performing “live work” and at no time should either a business or worker/s be pressured into working live.