This is one of the FAQs from our Electrical Safety Panel Discussion with John Kolak MS CSP, Charles Miller NEC Expert, & Bhanu Srilla CESP CMRP.
Charles Miller: All right, there are several things. For one thing, we have alerting techniques. Those provisions are in 70E, and the title of the section is "alerting techniques to warn employees." But it does say "where necessary." That in itself is not a requirement. It does cover safety signs and tags, barricades, and attendance. There's a warning to warn unqualified persons that there is a shock hazard and there's also a requirement to warn them to stay out of the limited approach boundary. There also might be in a company, their specific electrical safety policy, to put up barricades or have an attendant have at least one additional person. So it really depends on the company. We found some of the requirements in 70E but I've seen a lot of other requirements that are more specific; more restrictive in a company's electrical safety policy.
View the complete electrical safety panel discussion below: