LOTO (Lockout/Tagout) awareness training for a solar plant teaches workers to control hazardous energy sources, such as electrical and stored energy, during maintenance and servicing by following specific procedures to prevent unexpected equipment startup, release of energy, or re-energization. Key aspects include identifying energy sources, implementing isolation, using appropriate devices, verifying de-energization, and understanding responsibilities. For solar plants, training must address specific hazards like energy stored in capacitors within inverters and the complexities of AC-coupled battery systems.
This video explains the basics of lockout/tagout procedures in the context of a solar power system:
55s
Interplay Learning Interactive Training
YouTube · 4 Jun 2018
What is LOTO Training?
Purpose: To protect workers from serious injury or death caused by unexpected startup or the release of hazardous energy when performing maintenance or servicing on machinery and equipment.
Application: In a solar plant, this involves safely controlling electrical energy from PV panels and inverters, as well as stored energy in components like capacitors and batteries.
Key Components of LOTO Training
Hazardous Energy Identification: Recognizing different types of energy, including electrical, mechanical, hydraulic, pneumatic, chemical, and thermal.
Energy Isolation: Understanding how to shut down and de-energize equipment to a zero-energy state.
Lockout/Tagout Devices: Learning to use appropriate locks, tags, and other devices to safely control energy isolation points.
Isolation Procedures: Following documented steps to lock out and tag all energy sources before performing work.
Verification: Testing to ensure that all energy sources have been completely de-energized and isolated.
Roles and Responsibilities: Understanding the specific duties of employees, supervisors, and authorized personnel in the LOTO process.
Specific Considerations for Solar Plants
Inverters and Capacitors: Training must cover the energy stored in capacitors within inverters, which can remain hazardous even after the main power is off.
Battery Systems: Complex AC-coupled battery systems require comprehensive LOTO procedures for both the PV and battery inverters to ensure the entire system is de-energized.
Specific Equipment: Awareness of components like transformers, which require safe de-energization during servicing.
Benefits of LOTO Training
Accident Prevention: Reduces the risk of accidents, fatalities, and injuries related to hazardous energy.
Legal Compliance: Helps organizations meet legal and regulatory requirements, such as those from OSHA.
Improved Safety Culture: Fosters a greater awareness of workplace hazards and promotes safer work practices.
Ozone facts
ReplyDeleteWhat is ozone?
Ozone is a colorless gas. Chemically, ozone is very active; it reacts readily with a great many other substances. Near the Earth’s surface, those reactions cause rubber to crack, hurt plant life, and damage people’s lung tissues. But ozone also absorbs harmful components of sunlight, known as “ultraviolet B”, or “UV-B”. High above the surface, above even the weather systems, a tenuous layer of ozone gas absorbs UV-B, protecting living things below.
What is a Dobson Unit?
The Dobson Unit (DU) is the unit of measure for total ozone. If you were to take all the ozone in a column of air stretching from the surface of the earth to space, and bring all that ozone to standard temperature (0 °Celsius) and pressure (1013.25 millibars, or one atmosphere, or “atm”), the column would be about 0.3 centimeters thick. Thus, the total ozone would be 0.3 atm-cm. To make the units easier to work with, the “Dobson Unit” is defined to be 0.001 atm-cm. Our 0.3 atm-cm would be 300 DU.
What is the ozone hole?
Each year for the past few decades during the Southern Hemisphere spring, chemical reactions involving chlorine and bromine cause ozone in the southern polar region to be destroyed rapidly and severely. This depleted region is known as the “ozone hole”. The area of the ozone hole is determined from a map of total column ozone. It is calculated from the area on the Earth that is enclosed by a line with a constant value of 220 Dobson Units. The value of 220 Dobson Units is chosen since total ozone values of less than 220 Dobson Units were not found in the historic observations over Antarctica prior to 1979. Also, from direct measurements over Antarctica, a column ozone level of less than 220 Dobson Units is a result of the ozone loss from chlorine and bromine compounds.
hi
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