What is the need for electrical fire safety via electrical audits
Comprehensive electrical safety audit can provide a thorough review of the electrical system. This could identify potential electrical hazards, flaws in the design system, maintenance system, etc. At present electrical safety audits are carried out as per Central Electricity Authority Regulation 2010. Manual audits are performed at specific schedules and perform the job of inspection, testing and periodic tests in a facility. A new form of safety audits is now possible via automation, where devices like Smart DBs / Smart Auditors / Smart Optimizers offer real time audit and protection. These real time audits are now part of the latest guidelines for fire safety in hospitals.
What are the latest guidelines for fire safety in hospitals?
In response to the several electrical fires in hospital and temporary COVID centers across India, the Ministry of Home Affairs has circulated guidelines on 4th May 2021 to all states and UTs for ensuring safety from electrical fires for both temporary and permanent medical facilities.
The circular F. No. VIII-110111/02 (Adv)/2020-DGCD (F) requires the needs for:
- Permanent hospitals should implement the National Building Code of India
- Temporary Covid Hospitals should implement IS 8758
- Hospitals must request Fire Services to deploy Fire Tender at hospital or alternately engage 24x7 a trained fire safety officer.
- Follow the recommendation in annexure of guidelines in addition to the CEA regulations
What are the recommendations in annexure for electrical fire safety in permanent hospitals?
IS732 is the Indian standard for electrical wiring quality and adopted by the National Building Code of India. In reference to IS732 and IS71521 hospitals must perform:
- Inspection
- Testing
- Periodic verification for medical standards
- Real time protection via Smart DBs / Smart Auditors / Smart Optimizers
How to identify and resolve potential gaps?
Jhaveri Power Labs has developed the JPL Smart Audit Programme to help medical organizations to identify and correct the specific challenges with optimizing for safety, reliability and energy efficiency. The programme will help hospitals to achieve electrical fire safety as per the guidelines issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs for regular and temporary COVID hospitals. A comparative analysis of the JPL Smart Audit with traditional manual audits is discussed in Table below.
|
Guidelines for fire safety prescribed by Ministry of Home Affairs |
Checked via |
Manual Audits |
JPL Smart Audits |
|
Fire safety audit for NBC compliance and fire safety office training |
Walkthrough audits |
Complete |
Complete |
|
Quality of electrical installation conforming to mechanical & electrical requirements |
Inspection |
Complete |
Complete |
|
Quality of electrical wiring and checking for loose connections |
Inspection |
Partial |
Complete |
|
Physical checks for protection against electrical shock, short circuit, thermal effects, protective & monitoring devices, overvoltage protective devices (SPD), neutral open and earthing |
Inspection |
Partial |
Complete |
|
Voltage quality verification |
Real time protection |
None |
Complete |
|
Detection of loads with low power factor, high harmonics , high inrush and unbalanced or asymmetrical loads |
Real time protection |
None |
Complete |
|
Protection against risk of arcing, Short circuit, Earth leakage, Over voltage, Under voltage, Phase loss, Phase reversal and neutral loss |
Real time protection |
None |
Complete |
|
Submit data validating protection and compliance to IS732 once a quarter using automatically generated reports |
Real time protection |
None |
Complete |
|
Automatic disconnection for critical events & SMS in case of detection of overload systems |
Real time protection |
None |
Complete |
|
Physical tests of continuity, insulation resistance of SELV, PELV and leakage impedance |
Testing & periodic verification |
Partial |
Complete |
|
Physical tests of Polarity, voltage drop, phase sequence |
Testing & periodic verification |
Partial |
Complete |
|
Functional test of insulation monitoring devices of medical IT systems and alarm system |
Testing & periodic verification |
Complete |
Complete |
|
Verification of equipotential bonding and leakage measurements in critical locations |
Testing & periodic verification |
Complete |
Complete |
|
Physical tests for effectiveness of automatic disconnection of supply and protection |
Testing & periodic verification |
Complete |
Complete |
|
Functional testing of changeover devices, insulation monitoring devices at full load |
Periodic verification |
Complete |
Complete |
|
Functional testing of backup solution at full load for 60 min |
Periodic verification |
Complete |
Complete |
What are the deliverables from JPL Smart Audits?
Total time required to complete the smart audit and submission report will be Two weeks from the date of receiving of PO and may vary depending on the quantity of systems and site conditions. The following tools are utilized. The JPL Smart Audit Programme will deliver:
- Walk through Audit report for gaps in meeting NBC 2016
- Training program for fire safety officer
- Complete site SLD
- Site inspection and testing report with gaps to IS732 and IS71521
- Realtime identification of critical electrical events and risk based alerts.
- Remotely operating command center to analyze the realtime data
- Periodic checks performed as per prescribed schedules
