I am sure you have heard of the saying – ‘don’t fix what ain’t broken’ – but listening to this motto can get you into some trouble in the energy business.
Spark Power is actively involved in substation maintenance and inspections. We understand that frequent scheduled maintenance will ensure a safe workplace environment, as well as the safe and effective performance of your equipment.
Maintenance and Inspections
Why is maintenance important? Safety and reliability are impacted every time regular maintenance is delayed or cancelled. Spark Power takes a proactive approach in identifying problems before they occur, to minimize the risk of failure, loss of production, and damage to equipment and/or property. This service will ensure that the electrical equipment will operate properly – and safely.
Substation Maintenance is a pre-emptive tactic designed to help maintain the integrity and extend the life of important assets. and Insurance Underwriters world-wide highly recommend annual maintenance of substation equipment. Not only will this process increase the credibility of your equipment, it will also be quite cost effective as it can identify potential issues before they arise, minimizing risk, failure, and lost production. Our maintenance and inspection process are mainly divided into two components, physical and visual.
Visual
Before entering any substation, our electricians are trained to perform a visual inspection of the area. This includes conducting a site hazard analysis and inspecting grounding and bonding to ensure ground grid integrity.
Physical
Physical inspections relate to inspections that require the station equipment to be taken off-line, de-energized and inspected. At Spark Power, we offer a wide variety of physical inspection procedures. From restoring surface finishes to rebuilding switchgear, we have what you need to ensure your workplace equipment is safe and fully operational.
Health and Safety
Our organization follows all applicable legislation surrounding electrical work; and all employees receive appropriate training in this regard (ie. Electrical Utility Safety Rules). With serving over 400 employees and 4,500 customers, being knowledgeable, competent and providing a trained staff is at the forefront of our business. According to ESA, the most common cause of occupational electrocution is using an improper procedure (60%). [1]
At Spark Power, we work towards taking every precaution necessary to bring that number down to zero. Workers receive extensive training on the Occupational Health & Safety Act and regulations, as well as job specific training programs as outlined by the EUSA Rulebook, IHSA, and others that fall in line with the development of our Leading Edge Safety program. All of these programs impact our business operations. Before our electricians even set foot on a site to perform work, they have to meet the training standards set out in our training programs to offer the best personnel for the job with the training required to perform work effectively, correctly and most importantly, SAFELY.
One key part of our health and safety program is the use of our cloud-based Safety Management System. At Spark Power we are utilizing eCompliance as the foundation for our Health and Safety program. eCompliance is not only an easily accessible system for every single employee, but an integral part of our Health and Safety Program to assist us in achieving COR Certification in Ontario through IHSA.
We are recognized as a leader in servicing the Utility and ICI industry sectors across Canada. At the centre of it all, our dedication to safety is recognized as an invaluable asset within our organization – and to our customers. Safety is more than just exercising precautionary methods or evading injury, it involves being accountable for our behaviors and actions. At Spark Power, we are engaged and have a thorough understanding for our policies, procedures, job tasks and training.
Are you operating safely?
REFERENCES
[1] http://www.wsps.ca/Information-Resources/Topics/Electrical-Hazards.aspx
SOURCES
- https://www.ihsa.ca/PDFs/Products/Id/RB-ELEC.pdf
- http://www.equisales.com/inspection-and-maintenance-of-substation-transformers/
- https://ehs.princeton.edu/book/export/html/75