Reply from: Mike Holt July 6 2016, 10:23 am EDT Electric utilities are not within the scope of the NEC, and there is no preventative maintenance requirement contained in the NEC. So the answer I'm sure is No. Reply from: Mark Voigtsberger UTGIS July 6 2016, 11:03 am EDT Hi Anthony,
You are correct about the GFCI nuisance tripping- it would require a pretty large and constant monitoring program, especially to make sure street lighting outages were reported and restored in a timely manner.
Several US States and parts of Canada have adopted safety testing laws as part of preventative maintenance programs to find these shock and electrocution hazards. (NY, MD, MA, RI and Ontario)
These electric faults can be detected using special sensors mounted to a vehicle to test large geographic areas quickly.
While a GFCI will of course operate almost instantly when a fault is detected, vehicle electrical safety testing programs have proven to be a viable alternative in identifying and eliminating hazards before someone gets hurt. Reply from: Mark Voigtsberger UTGIS July 6 2016, 11:07 am EDT Just saw Mikes reply. My answer is not contrary to what Mike said. The testing laws I mentioned are placed on the utilities (NESC) and not the municipalities (NEC). |