What is safety? We use the word so casually we tend to forget its basic definitions. It is the state of being secure from liability, harm, injury, danger, or risk. It’s the quality of averting or not causing injury, danger, or loss. It’s the action of being careful to avoid danger.
Hailo LLC manufactures access engineering products for wind turbine towers, such as ladders, service lifts, platforms, and fall-arresting systems. People using these products to access high elevations, such as turbine nacelles, should know their safety gear is made to the highest standards possible, no exceptions.
The working standard here is to allow no compromises or shortcuts to save a few pennies. When it comes to human life, there is no other choice.
With people’s lives at stake, nothing less than the best possible protection is acceptable. Others in the wind industry agree and share the philosophy.
When engineering or improving a product, calculations, safety factors, and past experience are not enough. Extensive testing is necessary to prove that the product is safe under the worst possible conditions.
I was fortunate enough to attend the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) Safety Workshop in Denver last year and earlier this month in Utah. This excellent workshop includes educational presentations to enhance awareness of every day safety issues, which will become more challenging as standards become more stringent.
It is important to speak with those who work daily on or around the towers. This is key to improving safety. They are the ones who face danger and risk their lives. They are the ones we must protect and invest in. We must listen to their concerns, and do everything in our power to provide everything they need to remain safe, not only from serious harm, but also to provide every means available to make their jobs more comfortable and less stressful.
We can learn the most from these people. Those of us who work in offices or don’t face dangerous situations on a daily basis must get involved with those who do. We must hear what they face, listen to their suggestions, and take action where possible. Those who make financial decisions must interact with the workers as well. This would allow faster approvals for monetary expenditures in the interest of safety. It makes sense to spend money on training and equipment instead of in the aftermath of something tragic.
Discussions with people in the wind industry have enlightened me as no schooling can. I have a totally new perspective on how to approach designs. I see human faces and hear their voices when designing something. I fight for spending the extra few dollars to make a product safer, and spare no expense to prove it in testing.
But even though you know you have a safe and secure product, OSHA, ANSI, ASME, and other standards come into play to form a sort of road block. For example, ask ten people at OSHA the same question and you get 10 different responses leaving designers more perplexed than when they started. Fortunately, high level discussions are now ongoing between AWEA and OSHA, as well as with state-level officials who may follow altogether different specs than federal agencies. People are slowly becoming aware that the wind industry has unique technologies and conditions which must be addressed.
Stacy Rowles, Hailo LLC’s Chairperson for the AWEA subcommittee on Service Lifts, is working towards a common goal for getting service lifts for wind towers certified on a state and local level. The difficulty is that most states recognize them as elevators, devices used by the public. They are not. Service lifts differ considerably and are used by highly trained personnel with extensive safety gear in use.
Service lifts alleviate worker fatigue in ascending and descending wind towers for service and maintenance. Climbing up and down an 80-m ladder is physically demanding, and doing so daily will likely result in long term or permanent injury. Service lifts prevent such injury. Although they cost more than ladders, their percentage increase to the tower is minimal.
And there are significant long term benefits. For example, personnel tend to stay at a job longer, medical costs and insurance premiums will be much lower, and work can be completed quicker. Another benefit: should a worker overlook a particular task high in a tower equipped only with a ladder for access, the task may be put off or not done at all. With a service lift, it is just another quick and smooth ride up to finish the job as it should be, resulting in more up-time for the turbine.
At this writing, new safety regulations specific to the wind industry are being developed. The committee is focused on unity among all service-lift manufacturers worldwide for reasonable and appropriate standards that benefit all.
A presenter at last year’s safety workshop closed with a slide of his family with the children playing and laughing. This is what safety is all about, he said –going home every day after work to be with family. The image is one we should visualize every time we make a decision that affects safety.
Filed Under: Safety
Answer for David Eldridge…This year’s AWEA Health and Safety Workshop was held in Utah, last year’s in Denver CO. Next year’s is not finalized yet, but there will be one I’m sure.
For AWEA events and news, or to join, please visit http://www.awea.org and you will learn more. Besides that, they’re all great people we can all share with and learn from each other.
Hope to see you at a future AWAE event. Take care, Ralph
Where was the (AWEA) Safety Workshop held in Utah? How can I stay informed of such meetings… I live in Utah and would have loved to attend. Here is a clip of my first Clipper climb… can you name a couple things we did wrong, or over looked, safety wise?
http://video.yahoo.com/watch/5578068/14647156