Effect of the new ICNIRP guidelines on exposure evaluation of electrical power systems

In December 2010 ICNIRP published new guidelines for limiting exposure to time-varying electric and magnetic fields (1 Hz to 100 kHz). There, several significant changes were made in comparison to the guidelines published in 1998. Since many national standards are based on the previous guidelines, it is obvious, that also the new guidelines will soon be incorporated in national standardizations. The proposed paper will first show the main differences between these guidelines with the focus on exposure evaluation on electrical power systems (railway systems and general electrical power supply). The specific focus will be on the change of the reference levels and - as a consequence - the different evaluation of harmonics.