Safety is a major concern for thousands of industrial facilities across the country, and there are several standards that ensure these businesses are operating safely, such as the National Electric Code (NEC) and NFPA 70E. The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) recently updated their NFPA 70B electrical safety standards for industrial facilities, and the steps outlined in these standards will soon be mandatory for businesses to follow in 2025. In previous years, NFPA 70B was viewed as a list of safety recommendations that were not enforced by OSHA, but this is changing. Let’s learn more about how these changes can impact your industrial facility’s operations.
What is NFPA 70B?
NFPA 70B is a set of electrical safety standards issued by the National Fire Protection Agency that outlines procedures for preventing electrical equipment failures. These standards are used in industrial facilities, manufacturing plants, and other commercial buildings where electrical systems are present. With these recent changes, OSHA can now reference NFPA 70B to support citations to industrial facilities under broader requirements, such as the General Duty Clause. Thus, it’s crucial for facility managers to understand these new compliance regulations and create a plan for adhering to these standards.
What Requirements Must Industrial Facilities Meet in 2025?
The main item that NFPA 70B requires is the creation of an Electrical Maintenance Plan (EMP), which ensures that all electrical equipment within a facility is working properly and safe to work around. A standard EMP includes a routine inspection plan that documents industrial maintenance procedures for all equipment as well as processes to implement corrective measures if necessary. Some of the items that you can find on a typical EMP regarding equipment inspections include visual inspections, lubrication, electrical testing, and even thermal imaging. NFPA 70B lists all of the tests required for electrical maintenance as well as the frequency that maintenance should be performed. Failure to comply with NFPA 70B standards can increase the risk of workplace injuries, increase loss of production from failures, and result in legal liabilities for property managers.
Another major focus for facility managers is performing maintenance checks on low voltage and medium voltage equipment, such as ground-fault protection systems and circuit breakers. These systems are responsible for distributing power to an industrial facility, and ensuring that each piece of equipment is functioning properly is crucial to preventing power outages and even workplace injuries. NFPA 70B also mandates that system studies must be performed at set intervals; these studies include short-circuit studies, coordination studies, and incident energy analyses. These must be completed every 5 years to ensure regulatory compliance.
How Can I Get Started On Achieving Compliance?
The first step towards achieving compliance is finding a trusted facility maintenance partner that can help you create an EMP. Servicing industrial electrical equipment requires a breadth of experience that ensures each maintenance item is completed according to NFPA 70B standards. A trusted industrial consulting partner can also help you customize your EMP to the exact needs of your industrial facility; if there’s critical equipment that requires more attention, a customized maintenance/troubleshooting plan can help your team to more effectively address the problem. In addition to creating an EMP, finding a partner that offers 24/7 emergency maintenance can give your staff peace of mind.
Make RAPIER Industries Your Trusted Facility Maintenance Partner
Few maintenance partners have the same qualifications as we do; our team is certified to work in industrial environments and has an unwavering commitment to making industrial facilities safer, stronger, and more efficient. RAPIER Industries is also affiliated with Avetta and ISNetworld, so if your facility requires compliance to their safety standards, we can ensure that these guidelines are followed. We offer 24/7 emergency maintenance and the know-how required to create an effective and NFPA 70B-compliant EMP. Ready to get to work? Contact RAPIER today to get in touch with our team of experts!
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