Electricity Today T&D Magazine

Verifying the functionality and integrity of a grounding system is critical to maintaining a safe workspace. Unfortunately, the tests used to achieve this goal, as well as the standards used to assess them, have required a specialized skillset, often leaving these tests done improperly or not at all. Now, with the industry progressing toward guided testing, new solutions make it possible for these tests to be performed correctly and accurately with limited test-specific training. Ultimately, this makes the difficulty of testing a ground grid similar to that of testing a transformer or circuit breaker. This article explains the purpose and...

The Promise of Learning Before Someone Gets Hurt

Near-miss reporting is widely promoted as a cornerstone of modern safety management. In theory, it allows organizations to identify hazards, weak signals, and system failures before they result in injury or death. A near miss is a warning shot, an opportunity to learn without paying the highest price. Yet in many utilities, near-miss systems collect far less information than they could, not because incidents are rare, but because crews choose not to report them.

Why Silence Feels Safer Than Speaking Up

Linemen rarely avoid reporting near misses out of indifference. More often,...