Training and certification of personnel for work on electrical apparatus for use in potentially explosive atmospheres

With the introduction of legislation in 1990, the Engineering Equipment & Materials Users Association (EEMUA) looked around for a suitable training package which could be used to help its members have their employees together with subcontract labour trained to an appropriate level and to be assessed as competent. As no training package was available which targeted this specific requirement the British Gas training scheme was selected as the basis for development of a national scheme for the training and certification of personnel for work on electrical apparatus for use in potentially explosive atmospheres within the oil and process industries. The training scheme which has been devised sets out to establish a minimum threshold of competency required, in order to ensure, so far as is practical, that the integrity of such equipment is not impaired during installation and ongoing maintenance. The objective of the training is therefore to give an insight and understanding of the special requirement for the equipment to be used, and working practices to be adopted when work is being undertaken in potentially hazardous areas, and thus enhance the degree of overall safety, not only for themselves, but also for their colleagues and the general environment