RCBO prohibition notice amended

The Victorian technical and safety regulator Energy Safe Victoria (ESV) has imposed additional requirements on the supply of RCBOs designed or marketed to be permanently fixed to household or similar electrical wiring in Victoria.

Suppliers must undertake additional testing and verification to ensure their products still operate satisfactorily if there is a defect in the installation or if the product has been installed incorrectly.

These requirements are listed in Additional testing and verification requirements for RCBOs.

Amended prohibition notice

ESV has amended its prohibition notice on the supply of RCBOs (known as RCDs) to provide more time for industry participants to adjust to the new regime.

The regulator’s investigation into RCBOs was instigated by a fatality in August 2016 in which it was found that a commonly used RCBO failed to operate. In April, ESV issued a prohibition notice to halt the supply of certain types of RCDs which testing showed had the potential to fail under certain circumstances. While the likelihood and frequency of such an event was low, ESV took the view that the issue was best addressed by halting the supply of these particular RCDs.

After consultation with industry, ESV has agreed to allow manufacturers a further 12 months to produce new models of RCDs that meet ESV’s strict standards. The revised prohibition notice will come into effect 1 July 2018. Any products that do not meet these new requirements will be prohibited from sale.

Several models of RCDs currently satisfy ESV requirements. A register of these RCDs will be published 1 May 2018.

ESV has identified two situations where 240 V can be present on the load side of an RCBO when it is in the open position:

• The device is installed in the opposite orientation to the one indicated by the manufacturer.
• The RCBO is installed in the correct orientation; however, there is a defect in the installation downstream from the device and there is 240 V present on the load terminals when the device is in the ‘off’ position.

ESV’s investigations have shown that some constructions of electronic and all electromechanical RCBOs are not affected by the situations listed above.