2015 NFPA 70E Changes

The following is an article that I wrote a few years ago listing the major changes for the 2015 edition. It was originally published in the May 2014 issue of Electrical Contractor Magazine and is provided here as a resource for your use.

Change Is On The Way! 2015 NFPA 70E
Published: May 2014 – Electrical Contractor Magazine
By Jim Phillips

Deja vu?

Déjà vu is that feeling you get when you think you have seen or done something before. NFPA 70E is giving us all déjà vu since it was just three short years ago, in 2011, that we were analyzing changes for the upcoming 2012 edition (see “It’s Almost Here, ”May 2011 Electrical Contractor Magazine. It’s time for that feeling once again as we move toward completion of the 2015 edition.

What’s new?

Some of the terminology used during this revision cycle has changed. Request for Proposals are now called Public Input (PI), and this revision cycle had 448 PIs. The Report on Proposals (ROP) is now called the First Draft, and what was previously called the Report on Comments (ROC) is referred to as the Second Draft.

The changes this article outlines are based on what was known at the time of writing. It does not include every change made, and much of the language is paraphrased due to space limitations. Since the NFPA Standards Council has not formally approved the final document, there is always the possibility of additional changes. Therefore, always refer to the final approved version when it is published.

Global changes

Several terms used throughout NFPA 70E have been changed for the 2015 edition. The left column in the terms table above refers to the term used in the 2012 edition and the right column lists the new corresponding term for 2015.

Please note: all references to hazard/risk category (HRC) have been deleted throughout the standard. Arc flash PPE category is the revised term.

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