In a safety notice, HSE said duty holders must ensure that control measures are in place to prevent workers from coming into contact with moving lift cars or parts.
HSE investigated an incident at a WTG and found the design of landing gates and guarding did not eliminate or reduce access to dangerous moving parts of the lift car as it operated with external one touch controls. It was possible to reach the lift car and become crushed or sheared against the gates.
Equipment must be supplied with adequate means of preventing contact with parts of machinery that could lead to injury. Inadequately guarded service lifts are likely to be considered by HSE to create a serious risk to users.
Given risks involved from any retrofit programme on a WTG, it may not be appropriate to replace access gates and/or landing guards, but operators must assess and adopt suitable hierarchical control measures.
Operators should check that the necessary control measures are in place for all WTG service lifts. If the control measures are not in place, operators need to withdraw the lift from use.
Those responsible for supply, installation, use, inspection, servicing, maintenance and for examination of WTG service lifts must ensure that:
As part of the risk management and control arrangements, operators could consider:
Managing risk includes effective maintenance and inspection of equipment. Operators should:
When supplying lifts for new WTGs, follow British Standard BS EN 81-44 ‘Safety rules for the construction and installation of lifts - Special lifts for the transport of persons and goods. - Part 44: Lifting appliances in wind turbines’ (www.is.gd/ovudec).
When designing landing gates to prevent access to moving parts during send and call operations of the lift follow British Standard BS EN ISO 13857 ‘Safety of machinery. Safety distances to prevent hazard zones being reached by upper and lower limbs’ (www.is.gd/negeso).
