What This Course Covers and What It Does Not

Electrical safe work practices in US facilities

This course is for electricians, maintenance technicians, electrical engineers and supervisors who work in US facilities, and for people who are preparing to become qualified persons for electrical work. It explains how to plan and carry out electrical work so that nobody is hurt by shock, arc flash or arc blast.

The course is aligned with NFPA 70E, Standard for Electrical Safety in the Workplace, published by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), and with the electrical safety rules of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA): 29 CFR 1910 Subpart S (Electrical) for general industry, with awareness of 29 CFR 1910.269 for electric power generation, transmission and distribution work.

The level is intermediate. You are expected to know basic electrical theory already. The course asks you to apply the rules: choose a method, read a label, judge whether energized work is justified, and spot what is missing from a plan.

Which edition?

NFPA revises 70E on a regular cycle, about every three years. This course was written against the 2024 edition. A 2027 edition has since been prepared, and it may already be the edition in use where you work. Section numbers and some requirements move between editions.

For that reason, this course describes what the standard requires and avoids quoting its text or tables. Always work to the edition your employer has adopted in its electrical safety program, and read the standard itself for exact wording, values and table entries. Your company's procedures may also be stricter than the standard.

What the course leaves to other courses

Basic electrical hazards for non-electrical staff are taught in the Electrical Safety Awareness course. The full lockout practice for all energy types is in the Lockout/Tagout and Energy Isolation course. How switchgear is designed and how protection is set is in the Power Distribution and Switchgear course and the Electrical Protection and Relays course. This course recaps those topics only where electrical safe work practices depend on them.