Workers' exposure to electric fields during the task 'maintenance of an operating device of circuit breaker from a service platform' at 110 kV substations.

The objective of the study was to investigate occupational exposure to electric fields during the task 'maintenance of an operating device of circuit breaker from a service platform' at 110 kV substations. The aim was also to compare the results to Directive 2013/35/EU. At 16 substations, 255 electric field measurements were performed. The highest mean value of the electric fields was 9.6 kV.m-1. At 63% of substations, the maximum values were over 10.0 kV.m-1, and at 31% of the substations, the 75th %iles were over 10.0 kV.m-1, which are the low action levels (ALs) according to Directive 2013/35/EU. All measured values were below the high ALs (20.0 kV.m-1). In the future, it is important to take into account that the measurements were only taken at Finnish 110 kV substations; therefore, it is not possible to generalize these results to other countries and different types of substations. PMID: 29382271 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: International Journal of Occupational Safety and Ergonomics - Category: Occupational Health Tags: Int J Occup Saf Ergon Source Type: research