switching

Hi i am looking for some advice, I have recently started working at a Biomass Power plant. The SAP on site dost fill me with confidence the whole site is new with all new Schneider switch gear. He has us racking in and out live breakers and opening and closing them, 1 with no theory behind it 2 in my eyes not the correct PPE  no arch proof clothing at all.

is it safe to continually rack theses in and out my thoughts are if its in and closed leave it alone until there is a problem. 

we have received no theory on the workings on these breakers and i have refused to take any instruction from him as i have no confidence at all in his abilities. 

whats the worst that could happen?

oh wait, this







if youve not had any proper training on what to do then you and your boss are not complying with EAWR. a read of the manuals for the specific equipment should also tell you how to use it correctly

Christ no! Do no rack a closed breaker in or out ever! 

In fact I haven't seen any modern hv switchgear that isnt mechanically interlocked in such a way as to stop this. 

Rob. said:

Christ no! Do no rack a closed breaker in or out ever! 

In fact I haven't seen any modern hv switchgear that isnt mechanically interlocked in such a way as to stop this. 

Click to expand...

Hi When racking in and out they are always open 

why are you removing them in the first place?

Andy™ said:

why are you removing them in the first place?

Click to expand...

he insists he is carrying out training.

we go in to the LV sub station and he has us opening a live breaker racking it out then back in them closing it. I asked where the Schneider manuals are so that i can have a read over them to get more familiar with their internal workings. 

during this task we should be wearing the correct PPE i.e  arch proof ppe ?

Let me get this right .   You are constantly  switching down  breakers in an LV   sub   ( So  400V   yes ? )   ...winding the gear  out  and then back in  , and powering up again ?    

I don't see the need to  keep doing that TBH   .     I think if you are NOT load shedding before switching  you should be wearing anti flash gear  these days .  

Isn't there something useful you could be doing . ? 

id agree that its good practice to try it for real every so often so when you do have a failed one you know what to do, but sounds like this is being done excessively?  if they really are that bothered, maybe have an entire spare set that you could practice on where there is no risk

also, this is an arch



and i guess this is what you could call arch proof ppe

Evans Electric said:

Let me get this right .   You are constantly  switching down  breakers in an LV   sub   ( So  400V   yes ? )   ...winding the gear  out  and then back in  , and powering up again ?    

I don't see the need to  keep doing that TBH   .     I think if you are NOT load shedding before switching  you should be wearing anti flash gear  these days .  

Isn't there something useful you could be doing . ? 

Click to expand...

Yes 400v 

yes winding out then back and powering back up he calls this training 

it horrifies me that he could injure some one with his inept attitude

Andy™ said:

id agree that its good practice to try it for real every so often so when you do have a failed one you know what to do, but sounds like this is being done excessively?  if they really are that bothered, maybe have an entire spare set that you could practice on where there is no risk

also, this is an arch

and i guess this is what you could call arch proof ppe

Click to expand...

i see lol arc auto correct lol

chazkemp69 said:

Like RoB, I’ve never seen modern switchgear that wasn’t interlocked.

yes winding out then back and powering back up he calls this training 

it horrifies me that he could injure some one with his inept attitude

Click to expand...

I can’t see any harm in that other than wearing out the gear prematurely. Some of our 11kV gear would be racked in and out every week as part of plant isolation procedures.

We would only have normal PPE (safety glasses, coveralls,)on for routine racking in and out of breakers.

We only put on the flash suit, full face masking, HV gloves, when we were " live sticking" or potentially live sticking.

This was done when proving dead on the bus bars or phase rotation checks when, for example a new transformer was installed, so before a a bus tie breaker went anywhere near it, we would put the proving sticks on both sides of the bars to prove they were in phase. For this the flash suit etc were for sure donned.

It is good to be familiar with the racking operation and interlocks of your breakers so that when you get called to it at 3am you do have a mental / muscle memory starting point, as I am sure you have felt now there is that point when you rack in breakers that it gets a bit tighter and that is the shutters opening but still reguires a little more to engage  the contacts. Of course everything is within reason and I would want a read of the O&M manuals, most are available on line.

I’m thinking this isn’t training for the safe operation of switchgear, it’s more like playtime for the new SAP.