Safety risk management for electrical transmission and distribution line construction

 The result of inadvertent contact with T&D lines often is death or severe injury that involves damage to internal organs, musculoskeletal disorders, neurological damages and severe burns. The Electrical Safety Founda-tion International has demonstrated that contact with overhead power lines has been the single largest cause of electrical fatalities over the last decade. To reduce this disproportionate injury rate, electrical contractors implement many strategies such as the use of rubber insulating equipment, and locking devices. Unfortunately, these strategies are often cost-prohibitive in certain construction and mainte-nance scenarios. Therefore, electrical contractors are faced with complex decisions that involve compar-ing the cost of injury prevention with the expected safety benefit. This paper presents research that objectively evaluated the risk associated with common T&D construction tasks and the effectiveness of specific injury prevention techniques. The research team then developed a decision support framework that provides electrical contractors with objective safety and cost feedback given specific project charac-teristics. The results indicate that many of the effective strategies implemented to reduce T&D electrical injuries are very costly (e.g., de-energizing lines). Consequently, under most conditions, the costs of injury prevention far outweigh the cost savings associated with the reduction of injury rates. The impli-cation of these findings is that T&D electrical contractors must highly value the non-monetary benefits of injury prevention in order to improve safety in their sector.

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