Intech Blog

Arc Flash Risk: Does Your Facility Need a Safety Assessment?

Published August 16, 2026 · Intech Corporation · Twin Cities, MN

An arc flash risk assessment is an engineering study of your facility's electrical distribution system that identifies where a fault could release enough energy to injure a worker, then spells out the personal protective equipment and safe working distances needed at each piece of equipment. It's built around NFPA 70E, the industry consensus standard for electrical safety in the workplace, and it typically covers everything from the main switchgear down to individual motor control centers and panelboards. If your facility hasn't had one done, or it's been sitting in a drawer since your last equipment upgrade, that's worth fixing before someone opens a panel door on a hot day.

We've been getting more calls about this lately, and it's not hard to see why. Minnesota's data center boom and the steady growth in manufacturing and warehouse automation across the metro mean more facilities are running higher fault-current switchgear and denser motor control setups than they were even five years ago. More equipment, more amperage, more places for something to go wrong if a breaker's undersized or a connection's loosened up over time.

Arc flash isn't a hypothetical for us. It's what happens when a fault creates a low-impedance connection through air between conductors, and the energy release can hit temperatures four times hotter than the surface of the sun in a fraction of a second. Most incidents trace back to something mundane: a loose lug, corrosion, a tool left in the wrong place, equipment that was never properly maintained. That's exactly why the assessment and the maintenance behind it matter more than people expect.

What NFPA 70E Actually Asks For

NFPA 70E is the standard OSHA points employers toward when it comes to protecting workers from electrical hazards, even though OSHA itself doesn't cite it directly as law. In practice, that means facilities with energized equipment are expected to identify arc flash and shock hazards, estimate how severe a fault could be, and put protective measures and labeling in place before anyone works near that equipment.

The standard generally calls for these assessments to be reviewed on a regular cycle, and updated any time you make a significant change to the electrical system, a new transformer, a service upgrade, added switchgear, that kind of thing. If your facility has added equipment or expanded since the last study was done, treat that old paperwork as outdated even if the calendar says it's not due yet.

Signs Your Facility Is Overdue

A lot of facility managers inherit an electrical system they didn't design and don't have current documentation for. Here's what usually tips us off that an assessment is past due:

• No arc flash labels on your switchgear, panels, or motor control centers, or labels that look faded and outdated
• You've added equipment, expanded a service, or done a tenant improvement build-out since the last study
• Maintenance staff can't tell you the incident energy or required PPE category for a given panel
• Your one-line diagram is more than a few years old or doesn't match what's actually installed
• You've had unexplained breaker trips, warm panels, or flickering that nobody's investigated

What Happens During the Assessment

A proper arc flash study isn't a quick walkthrough. It starts with field data collection, an engineer documents every relevant piece of equipment, conductor size, breaker settings, transformer impedance, and utility fault current available at your service. That data feeds a short-circuit and coordination study, which then models incident energy at each point in the system.

• Site data collection and verification of existing one-line diagrams
• Short-circuit and protective device coordination modeling
• Incident energy and arc flash boundary calculations at each piece of equipment
• Equipment labeling showing required PPE category and safe approach distances
• A written report your maintenance team and any outside contractors can reference before opening a panel

Maintenance Is Half the Battle

A risk assessment tells you where the hazards are today. It doesn't stop a connection from loosening next year or a breaker from drifting out of calibration. That's where routine preventative electrical maintenance comes in, infrared thermal scans catch hot spots at connections and overloaded circuits before they become failures, and periodic torque checks on switchgear connections close the gap between assessments.

We see this play out constantly on industrial power distribution and motor control systems. The facilities that stay on top of maintenance rarely have surprises show up during a reassessment. The ones that don't tend to find several things wrong at once.

Why This Isn't a DIY Checklist

We'll say this plainly: nobody without the right training and PPE should be opening energized switchgear or panels to poke around, full stop. Arc flash risk assessments require licensed electrical engineers and qualified electricians who understand fault current calculations, protective device coordination, and the practical realities of your specific equipment. Get it wrong and you've either underprotected your workers or slapped an inaccurate label on a panel that gives everyone false confidence.

If you're not sure where your facility stands, or your last assessment predates recent equipment changes, that's a conversation worth having with someone who does this work regularly on equipment power wiring and industrial systems across the Twin Cities.