Basic Measures Assisting the Avoidance of Arc Flash

The European approach underlines the equipment integrity for the safety against electrical hazards “giving collective protective measures priority over individual protective measures” and promotes passive measures against the electric shock that assists to prevent the arc flash hazard. The International Electrotechnical Commission/European Standards (IEC-EN) passive measures are based on the international protection (IP) code, safety procedures, medium voltage (MV) isolator switches with three statuses, MV switchboards tested against internal arcs, and forms of separation for MV-low voltage switchgears. This paper suggests a tentative criterion prospecting a reference value of the arc current to adopt in the protection coordination design.