April 9, 2015 – IEEE has approved four new standards in the IEEE 3000 Standards Collection for Industrial and Commercial Power Systems (formerly IEEE Color Books), which sets guidelines and establishes standards for power generation and distribution.

The new standards were created to support power-oriented engineers responsible for electrical design and safety. They are:

•    IEEE 3001.5 “Recommended Practice for Application of Power Distribution Apparatus in Industrial and Commercial Power Systems,”
•    IEEE 3003.2 “Recommended Practice for Equipment Grounding and Bonding in Industrial and Commercial Power Systems,”
•    IEEE 3004.5 “Recommended Practice for the Application of Low-Voltage Circuit Breakers in Industrial and Commercial Power Systems” and
•    IEEE 3006.5 “Recommended Practice for the Use of Probability Methods for Conducting a Reliability Analysis of Industrial and Commercial Power Systems.”

The IEEE 3001.5 standard is intended to provide engineers with guidance on how to apply electrical component breakers and switches, and the equipment that contains and connects them, within the limitations established by approved codes and operational best practices, IEEE noted.

IEEE 3003.2 provides engineers “the technical specifications in the grounding and bonding of equipment in industrial and commercial power systems, which includes minimizing electric shock hazard to personnel, providing adequate current carrying capability of protective conductors under ground fault conditions, and ensuring the timely operation of over-current protective devices as the protective measure against electric shock.”

The guidelines of IEEE 3004.5 are designed to give engineers designing or maintaining a low voltage industrial or a commercial power system the “background and fundamental understanding of the system’s technical components.” This updates the information previously published and supported by IEEE 1015-2006 “Recommended Practice for Applying Low-Voltage Circuit Breakers Used in Industrial and Commercial Power Systems” (part of the original IEEE Blue Book Series).

Also joining the collection, IEEE 3006.5 delves into basic methodologies, definitions and concepts to conduct a “reliability analysis of industrial and commercial power systems.”

“Basically, IEEE 3006.5 is designed to provide reliability information to a non-reliability engineer. It intends to provide basic and medium concepts of the statistics that go into the analysis of a industrial power system,” said Robert Arno, chair of the IEEE 3006 Power Systems Reliability Working Group. “The standards that we’re developing in the power systems reliability working group are all related, in a sense, that they help the engineer not only in the design process but also throughout the lifecycle of the equipment.”

IEEE 3001.5, IEEE 3003.2, IEEE 3004.5 and IEEE 3006.5 are all available for purchase at the IEEE Standards Store.