Utility Week

32 | APRIL 2022 | UTILITY WEEK Health & Safety Download report Get in the know and stay safe A new Utility Week report, produced in association with Ordnance Survey, explores how utilities are responding to new health and safety challenges with the help of location data. M aintaining and improving health and safety in the utilities industry is a constant challenge because of the high-risk nature of the technologies employed and the distributed geography of both energy and water networks. Industry figures show that safety is improving year on year, with the all-injury frequency rate among energy network staff seeing a 74% reduction in the past ten years. Despite this, certain areas continue to deliver health and safety incidences, and while performance is improving in tradi- tional areas of risk, developments in other industries and the pandemic have brought new challenges for the industry. Many health and safety situations arise from working in new locations across utility companies' geographical areas. These include utility strikes from con- struction and maintenance works, collisions with low-voltage cables and reconnecting customers in difficult conditions a€er bad weather. Ensuring the safety and wellbeing of their own workforce out in the field is a challenge, but utilities must also prevent potentially deadly interactions with their networks by members of the public. Drivers for change Due to the hard work of the Energy Networks Association, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) now regards the electricity industry as being "lower risk". While this may be the case, threats to both workers and the public remain, with fatalities resulting from interactions with the electricity network seen on an annual basis. Eradicating fatalities is a priority, but there is also a focus on reducing lost time incidences and improving wellbeing. One of the main challenges across the water, gas and electricity industries is trying to keep workers safe on site. "There is dynamic risk which every day changes depending on where the workers are out on the public highway, and that gen- erates the most risks in terms of day-to-day accidents, bumps and scrapes, and knocks and falls, and also that's where we interact with the public in most occasions," says Brett Stinton head of health, safety, environ- ment and quality at Northumbrian Water. This means a risk assessment of each site must be carried out, with 100,000 holes being dug by Northumbrian Water across its network every year. One of the biggest risks to workers on site is cable strikes – when underground cables are damaged during construction and main- tenance works – and these pose a serious risk to worker welfare. According to the ENA, 354 workers suf- fered life-changing injuries because of cable strikes between 2015 and 2020. High-pressure water mains and gas pipes can also be an issue if they are struck during works, with gas mains particularly at risk of damage from the agricultural sector during digging works for drainage. Agricultural workers are also at risk from collision with overhead power lines as farm machinery continually gets bigger and taller. How utilities are safeguarding their employees In 2018, the Geospatial Commission identi- fied better quality and more easily accessible location data for underground assets as a way to cut cable strikes. The commission is now creating a national digital map, known as the National Underground Asset Register (NUAR), of all the UK's 1.5 million kilometres of under- ground utility assets. "The better your knowledge of your assets and where they are precisely, the less likely someone is to hurt themselves when they are digging," says Stinton. Northumbrian Water is undertaking Project Z, which sees it creating a model of network depth. While all underground assets should be buried according to NJUG standards, changes on the surface, and obstacles under the ground, may mean pipes are actually shallower or deeper than this standard. Data taken from each hole dug by North- umbrian Water will update the Project Z model until it is accurate and can be used to plan jobs better and find services first time. "We are piloting it for the water indus- try but we expect it to catch on when we show the results, and it could be applied to gas and electricity where the safety benefits would be much greater and knowledge of depth is really crucial," he adds. Start-ups such as Fyld, an AI-driven field service management solution, are keen to access NUAR data to help digital- ise the health and safety aspects of site management. Fyld is already being used by gas distribu- tion operator SGN to improve the safety and productivity of its field operations. SGN's field workers now video their sites on arrival using the Fyld app and make an audio record of any potential hazards and controls, giving managers far greater insight than traditional paperwork. Site controls must also be implemented for workers in the electricity transmission sector, because safe distances must be main- tained to live assets as governed by legal frameworks. National Grid Electricity Transmission uses its own in-house geospatial platform to plot safe working distances on site. "Where we need to implement some kind of restriction or hazard zone we put a graphical overlay in that geospatial system so not only is there is physical restriction on site there is a virtual representation that can be seen centrally," says Daniel Perry, asset management frameworks manager for National Grid. Utility companies o€en have to respond in emergency situations, limiting their ability to plan for risks. ENA member companies have worked with the developers of mapping app What3words and are now starting to intro- duce it into their workflows to track workers' locations out on the field. Gareth Pearson, Northern Powergrid's head of health, safety and training, says: "Keeping our people safe is our top priority at all times but extreme events like Storm Arwen bring with them heightened levels of

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