NFPA 70E 2015

[Jimmy2]

Hello:

Do PEs have to use the latest version of SKM, ETAP, DesignBase, et al that have the 2015 update of NFPA 70E or can they use the versions that only have the 2012 update?

Jimmy2, PE

 

[dpc]

Of course you can do whatever you feel good about and are willing to sign off on. You would have to disclose to your client who is paying you that your study was based on the 2012 version rather than the 2015 version.

If you are calculating arc flash based on IEEE 1584 equations, the changes in the 2015 NFPA 70E will not change the incident energy or arc flash boundary calculation. The information on the label could be impacted.

I'm guessing you already know what the right answer is.

 

[Jimmy2]

dpc,

Yes, I do know the answer.

A PE was hired and he did an analysis in January/2015 using ETAP 12.6 which uses the 2012 version of NPFA 70E. I have no misgivings about his calculations, but the NFPA 70E 2015 had already arrived and all the major software houses, ETAP included, had updated their software.

It seems to me that as PE's we are ethically obligated to use the latest updated software to perform an arc flash study and print labels conforming to the latest revision of NFPA 70E.

Jimmy2, PE

 

[wbd]

Since the software uses the same IEEE 1584 equations the results will not change. What would change in the software is the labeling modules would be updated to reflect the new NFPA 70E-2015 label requirements, mainly no more HRC but the actual calculated incident energy on the label. If the labels are not printed via the software it may not be an issue. We created our own labels and the study info gets imported into a custom spreadsheet for the labels. This way we do not worry about the software label modules however we do pay the yearly maintenance fee to stay current

 

[JBUDA54]

My standard answer is that it depends...

Typically Codes are adopted to a project based on when the Purchase Order was signed or as dpc said if the engineering scope was written in a language that points to a specific adoption. Ethically, if the consultant has a maintenance argeement on the Power System Analysis software then they should maintain the latest codes, but if that project was at the end of a code release and the delivery occurs in the new release I would not expect the finished project to adhere to the current release. If the study was not too labor intensive then the PM could use discretion to adopt the latest I code.