"Switchgear & Substation Safety, Skills & Innovation Seminar"
About this Event
Switchgear & Substation Safety, Skills & Innovation
Bridging the Gap to a Renewable Energy Future
Join us for an outstanding programme featuring an inspiring keynote presentation, alongside our renowned line-up of industry leaders and influential manufacturers. Delegates will have the opportunity to network with safety and technical leaders from across South Wales' industry and renewable energy sectors, while learning from the best in substation and switchgear safety. The programme will focus on emergency preparedness, human factors and dynamic risk management and challenge current thinking around arc flash risk management, shifting the focus from consequence to cause. Discover the latest developments, best practices, and innovations in switchgear and substation safety while connecting with experts from across the sector.
See you there!
Agenda
🕑: 09:00 AM - 09:15 AM
Introduction to the event from Arc Guard
Host: David Davenport Arc Guard
Info: Arc Guard Ltd provides essential technical seminars, specialised training, and cutting-edge industry insights tailored for professionals working with low and medium voltage switchgear and within critical electrical substation environments.
We are dedicated to empowering individuals across the commercial, industrial, and renewable energy sectors with the critical knowledge and advanced awareness necessary to navigate the evolving energy landscape safely and effectively. Our programs focus on emerging technologies and best practices, ensuring your team is equipped to maintain the highest standards of safety and operational excellence.
🕑: 09:15 AM - 09:45 AM
Holistic Electrical Safety
Host: Andy Baker Electrical Safety UK
Info: Electrical Safety UK is a specialist engineering consultancy providing comprehensive arc flash risk assessments, electrical safety management, and compliance auditing. Their technical capabilities include IEEE 1584 arc flash calculations, complex power system modeling, and customized electrical safety rules development. They also deliver accredited technical training, helping industrial, utility, and commercial clients comply with the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989.
🕑: 09:45 AM - 10:15 AM
'The Event'….This Is What "Unlikely" Looks Like!
Host: Guest Speaker
Info: Our survivor shares his story of an industrial arc flash event, caused by a failing vacuum bottle within the switchgear. He'll walk us through his experience from the shutdown and the actions taken beforehand, through to the event itself and his recovery journey since.
We are privileged that he is willing to share his story and experience with us. Our aim is to learn from what he went through, and to use those lessons to make better safety decisions going forward.
🕑: 10:15 AM - 10:30 AM
'Emergency Preparedness' - Are you Ready?
Host: Shaun Spencer Swalek Training Services
Info: Emergency Preparedness. Are You Ready? If an event does occur, how prepared are you and your team? Shaun Spencer of Swalec Training Services is joined by the operational side of the local fire service, sharing what they see first-hand when called to an incident: what goes right, what goes wrong, and what they wish every site had in place before they arrive
🕑: 10:30 AM - 11:00 AM
Coffee & networking
🕑: 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
'Cause or Consequence?' - Rethinking How You Manage Arc Flash Risk
Host: David Davenport Transmag UK Ltd
Info: Transmag UK specialises in electrical safety and asset monitoring technology for LV/MV substations and switchgear. This session, "Consequence or Cause?", presented by David Davenport (Technical Director) and Craig Phillips (Technical Consultant), challenges the industry's default focus on arc flash consequences; PPE, incident energy, boundary distances and asks the prior question: why arent we monitoring the pre conditions to an arc flash event.
Most faults give warning signs, thermal drift, humidity, partial discharge long before failure, but fixed-interval inspections often miss them. The Transmag team will show how continuous monitoring closes that gap, using the Safe Access Panel to demonstrate prevention built into everyday operations, rather than relying on PPE and protection technologies to manage the consequence of an event that shouldn't have happened
🕑: 11:30 AM - 12:00 PM
Intelligent Condition Based Monitoring
Host: Alistair De Masi Powell
Info: Powell UK Division, operating from a major manufacturing facility in Bradford, specializes in custom-engineered low- and medium-voltage switchgear, intelligent motor control systems, and integrated power distribution packages. Serving critical sectors like oil, gas, power generation, and water treatment, the UK branch delivers tailored electrical energy control solutions built to demanding technical standards
🕑: 12:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Making Maintenance Safer, Smarter and More Productive
Host: Phil Kane Grace Technologies
Info: Grace Technologies focuses on industrial safety and asset uptime through two core capabilities: electrical safety and predictive maintenance. Their GracePESDs portfolio features permanent voltage indicators and test points that allow workers to safely verify de-energisation from outside industrial control panels. Additionally, their GraceSense IIoT system tracks real-time vibration and temperature data to predict and prevent critical machinery failures
🕑: 12:30 PM - 12:40 PM
The British Standards Institution - Young Professionals Engagement
Host: Sarah Terrell The British Standards Institution
Info: Shaping a sustainable future
Our mission is to empower you to inspire trust, foster excellence and ensure safety in your organization; driving positive change for a better world.
Utilize our extensive range of services and expertise in standards development, certification, training and assessment.
🕑: 12:40 PM - 01:30 PM
Lunch & Networking
🕑: 01:30 PM - 02:15 PM
Stay Composed -Think Clearly - Perform When It Matters Most
Host: Ian O'Grady - Human Performance Under Pressure
Info: Ian O’Grady is a keynote speaker and human performance consultant with more than 30 years’ experience operating where pressure is real and performance has consequences.
His career has spanned Expedition Leadership, Military Aviation and Helicopter Search and Rescue - environments where technical competence and procedures are essential, but the human response to pressure can still determine what happens next.
Today, Ian combines that hard-earned experience with established and emerging human-performance science, translating it into his BASE framework to provide compelling keynote speaking and practical training.
🕑: 02:15 PM - 02:45 PM
Swalek: The Team Behind Your Network's Uptime
Host: David Demock Swalek High Voltage Services
Info: Swalek High Voltage Services focuses exclusively on turnkey electrical infrastructure for private networks up to 132kV. Their core capabilities include full civil and electrical design, substation installation, cable laying, jointing, and routine maintenance like SF6 gas handling and protection relay calibration. They provide 24/7 emergency response for critical assets across industrial, commercial, and renewable energy sectors and dissolved gas oil analysis.
🕑: 02:45 PM - 03:00 PM
Comfort Isn't a Compromise: ProGARM's Arc-Rated Gore-Tex Range
Host: Darius Horne ProGARM
Info: ProGARM is a leading UK designer and manufacturer of specialized arc flash and flame-resistant PPE workwear. Their technical capabilities focus on inherent fabric technologies like VXS+, which provide lifetime thermal protection. Partnering with GORE-TEX, their advanced outerwear incorporates GORE-TEX PYRAD® stretch technology, delivering breathable, waterproof, and windproof protection alongside high-calorie arc ratings.
🕑: 03:00 PM - 03:30 PM
Proelectric Group
Host: Grace Nedelcheva Proelectric
Info: Proelectric — Advanced Electrical Testing Solutions
Proelectric supplies high-performance testing equipment and technical support to help you maintain the safety and reliability of your electrical infrastructure. As the official UK representative of EuroSMC, we offer protection relay test sets and general test & measurement equipment for substations, switchgear, power plants, and energy systems — all ISO 9001 certified and CE-marked.
Whether you're commissioning new equipment or carrying out routine maintenance, our team provides tailored solutions and expert technical backup, so you get the right tools and support to keep your systems running safely and efficiently.
🕑: 03:30 PM - 04:00 PM
'"The Beer Bucket Challenge' What's your takeaway?"
Host: Craig Phillips Arc Guard
Info: We're closing the day with a bit of fun and a test of just how much stuck. Throughout the seminar our speakers will have dropped key messages on switchgear and substation safety, and now it's your team's chance to prove you were listening. In this fast-paced closing quiz, teams go head-to-head answering questions built directly from the day's presentations. Get it right, and you'll walk away with a well-earned cold beer. Get it wrong… you'll be drinking XXXX or Fosters (sorry, Australia). A light-hearted way to end the day, reinforce the key safety messages, and send delegates home smiling
🕑: 04:00 PM - 04:30 PM
"It’s a Wrap" - Networking and feedback
Where is it happening?
GBP 0.00 to GBP 150.00
