Safety in the Standard

[jlgula]

Should ODG address safety at all? If so, in what respects and in what parts of the document?

We could broadly duck the issue with some kind of blanket disclaimer like: ODG systems should conform to all national safety standards. A statement like that may be necessary but I think that would weaken our overall goal of enabling a broad market of interoperable devices. I think the standard should provide enough information that people can readily follow it to build safe systems without resorting outside sources.

One possible answer to the question is to say safety is an issue for the supported nanogrid technologies and needs to be addressed in those sections. That still leaves open a couple of subquestions:

• Does the standard need to define any broad safety requirements to which all nanogrids must conform? I suggest that the introduction should at least include a generic goal that conforming systems should be safe for everyone including those with little previous experience with electricity.

• Are there circumstances in which each individual nanogrid and attached device is safe but the microgrid as a whole is unsafe? Assuming that we limit the scope of safety to specific requirements such as avoiding electric shock and fires and avoid application specific issues like keeping the clinic refrigerator operating, I cannot think of any. UL 60950 Information Technology Equipment – Safety – Part 1: General Requirements might provide a useful model. That standard defines its scope to include:

– electric shock;
– energy related hazards;
– fire;
– heat related hazards;
– mechanical hazards;
– radiation;
– chemical hazards.

Even that list may be too broad.