Checklist

Checklist

Contacting any powerline with any object is extremely dangerous and may result in serious injury. This includes contact with machinery or vessels – or even their extensions such as grain chutes, aerials, or flags on mastheads.

Even working close to powerlines without actually touching them can be fatal.

This is especially important to remember when working in adverse weather conditions such as storms, where lightning strikes may cause voltage surges. Abnormal operating conditions such as hot and/or windy weather can also reduce clearance distances.

To ensure your personal safety, please check for the location of overhead powerlines and potential electrical hazards before:

• Operating heavy vehicles and machinery (especially cranes, elevated work platforms, aerial applicators and harvesters)
• Transporting recreational vessels, high-loads and equipment
• Loading, fastening or unloading vehicles, especially stacking tall or long loads (such as irrigation pipes)
• Dumping materials using lift-tray trucks
• Travelling between farms
• Working near high-voltage substations.

Please remember to never work on top of a vehicle or its load when it is underneath or near a powerline, and never carry any metal object above waist height near powerlines.

Powerlines have the potential to sag lower in hot weather, which will reduce clearance under and beside the powerlines, and increase the risk of a clearance being breached.

Never guess at minimum clearances, as appearances can be deceptive. Do not measure by touching or by use of devices such as tape measures.

For any work that has the potential to breach minimum clearance distances to high-voltage powerlines, a vital element of your safety procedure must be to inform ElectraNet’s System Control Centre in advance. ElectraNet’s 1800 243 853 toll-free line operates during business hours for this purpose.

The Department of Transport, Energy and Infrastructure (DTEI) also provides additional information on working safely near overhead powerlines.