New South Wales Repealed Regulations

This legislation has been repealed.

COAL MINES (UNDERGROUND) REGULATION 1999 - REG 139

139 Explosion protection

(1) Only electrical apparatus of a type approved as explosion protected may be energised with electricity in a hazardous zone at a mine.

(2) Only electrical apparatus of a type approved as intrinsically safe may be energised with electricity in a part of a mine in which the methane concentration is dangerous.

(3) A mine electrical engineer must ensure that:

(a) any electrical equipment located in areas at the mine where there is coal dust is adequately safeguarded against the ingress and ignition of coal dust, and

(b) any electrical explosion protected apparatus used at the mine is designed, installed, commissioned, operated, maintained and decommissioned in a way that ensures the risk of internal electrical faults compromising the explosion protected properties of the apparatus is minimised, and

(c) any cable on the secondary side of a transformer used at the mine to supply apparatus required by this Regulation to be approved as explosion protected is constructed so as to prevent sparking in the earth conductors (as a result of electrical induction) from igniting gas, and

(d) only telephonic communication systems of a type approved as intrinsically safe (category Ex ia) are used underground at the mine.

(4) A person must not, in a hazardous zone, do any work on explosion protected electrical equipment while it is energised if the doing of the work will cause the equipment not to be explosion protected.

(5) Subclause (1) does not apply to:

(a) an approved caplamp, or

(b) portable electrical apparatus.

(6) Subclause (3) (c) does not apply to a cable that:

(a) has a maximum current rating below 20 amperes, or

(b) is used on an alternating current system at a voltage not exceeding 250 volts.