Certification of training centers for live working

Working on live low-voltage networks is becoming increasingly important for energy suppliers and grid operators. An intervention into the existing energy supply should take place as quickly as possible, “discretely” and without large outages or disturbances in the customer’s process workflows. However, live working holds significant hazards, especially in the power supply. People regularly die and become injured.

The employer is obligated to only use trained personnel for live working. Furthermore, there is a comprehensive work of general guidelines, rules and recommendations that ensure safe live working when consistently followed. The Occupational Safety Act (Arbeitsschutzgesetz), Operational Safety Ordinances (Betriebssicherheitsverordnungen), Occupational Health and Safety Regulations (Berufsgenossenschaftliche Vorschriften), the DIN VDE 0105-1 and DIN VDE 0105-100 standards or the IVSS guideline for assessing the qualification of Live Working personnel are technical directives that must be followed.

Live working is now indispensable in all voltage ranges - from low to extra-high voltage.  With its “Live Working quality mark”, the VDE works to ensure the compliance of special safety measures in this field and that only properly trained personnel perform live work. Our quality mark is issued to training centers that comply with all the directives and therefore show a high degree of training quality.

To obtain the Live Working quality mark, the theoretical content of the training, the didactical abilities of the trainers and the organization and technical equipment of the training center are examined and documented by the VDE Institute. After successful appraisal, we issue the Live Working quality mark to the training center. As a result, the awarded training centers and specialist companies can differentiate themselves from competitors. Furthermore, it offers a good orientation guide for employers that are looking for a suitable training offering.

To help obtain the Live Working quality mark, the experts at the VDE Institute and the “Live Working” expert committee offer workshops and appraisals for live work trainings in the VDE’s Energy Technology Society (ETG) to help companies obtain that coveted Live Working quality mark.

As a result, this produces a big advantage for all companies that are involved in the field of live working training and execution : they uniformly document the highest quality and occupational safety.