What the standards actually require of an employer — and what each requirement does to your program.

Two bodies of requirement govern electrical work in a US workplace. OSHA’s regulations in 29 CFR 1910 (general industry) and 29 CFR 1926 (construction) are the enforceable federal rules. NFPA 70E, now in its 2027 edition, is the consensus standard the industry writes its programs to. This page sets out what each obliges an employer to have, what it obliges an employer to prove, and what the 2027 edition changed. Every figure carries its source and year in the text beside it.

The 2027 edition — what changed, and what it means for your program

NFPA 70E is now in its 14th edition, dated 2027. The changes below were read directly in NFPA LiNK in August 2026; article numbers are cited as facts and no text of the standard is reproduced. What follows each change is the part that matters commercially — the documents, rosters and records that go out of date because of it.

Direct Current (dc) Electrical Hazards

Article 310 is content that was not in the previous edition — NFPA LiNK’s own change viewer states this plainly. Section 310.1 sets the scope: dc electrical hazard thresholds for employees working with direct current, applying to the systems covered in Chapter 3. Section 310.2 gives the thresholds. Where any one of the three values below is exceeded, risk control must be selected and applied from the hierarchy of risk control — three separate hazards, three separate triggers. A dc system can cross the thermal threshold without crossing the shock threshold, and the reverse.

Safety-Related Work Practices for Photovoltaic Systems

Article 380 covers electrical safety for employees working on PV arrays that present an electrical hazard; an informational note points to other Chapter 3 articles for components such as combiner boxes and inverters. Exposure levels in 380.2 use the same three dc thresholds as 310.2, and the article carries its own qualified person (380.4), PV risk assessment (380.5) and specific work procedures (380.6) sections.

The section that changes commercial reality is 380.3, Electrical Safety Training. It applies training requirements to employees exposed to electrical hazards working on or near PV arrays, interconnected PV equipment and collection systems; and it specifies what qualified person training must cover — the operating characteristics of the PV modules and equipment, recognising the continuously energised nature of PV panels, performing a risk assessment for energised work, developing and following procedures that minimise exposure, and using control measures including PPE.

Safety-Related Requirements for Batteries

Article 360 carries the scope in 360.1 and safety procedures in 360.3. The section to read carefully is 360.4, Establishing a Lower Risk Work Condition in Batteries.

Note the language the standard uses. Elsewhere in NFPA 70E the goal is an electrically safe work condition. For batteries it is a lower risk work condition. The distinction is not editorial: a battery cannot be de-energised. There is no upstream device you can open that makes the cell stop being a source. The standard has given battery work its own vocabulary because the ordinary vocabulary does not apply to it.

OSHA 29 CFR 1926 — construction work

Construction work sits under Part 1926, not Part 1910. Electrical requirements for construction are in Subpart K, and 1926.416 carries general requirements for work practices around energised parts. If your crews move between a plant and a construction site, both parts are in play and the applicable rule is decided by the work, not by the employer’s usual classification.

OSHA has also addressed the multi-employer question directly. In its Letter of Interpretation of July 25, 2003, OSHA stated that a controlling employer engaged in construction work does have obligations regarding 29 CFR Part 1926 Subpart K under the multi-employer policy. For a general contractor, that is the sentence to read twice: your subcontractor’s electrical work is not entirely someone else’s regulatory problem.

How OSHA and NFPA 70E relate

This question is usually asked as “is NFPA 70E law?” and usually answered with an opinion. We do not answer it. What follows is what OSHA itself has published, reported without a conclusion drawn on top of it. Each statement carries its source and date; all are public OSHA documents.

Find out which of these actually apply to you — before someone else does.

A compliance audit measures your program, procedures, labelling, PPE and training records against the 2027 edition and against 29 CFR 1910 and 1926, and returns findings in priority order with a corrective roadmap. Procedural and auditing work only — we do not perform incident energy analysis engineering studies and do not produce arc flash labels. We review existing studies, audit labelling, and write the procedures and training around them.