Generator Installation & Load Bank Testing SWMS
SWMS variants reference your state’s WHS legislation. Instant download after payment.
Generator installation and load bank testing is high risk construction work in New South Wales because it is carried out on or near energised electrical installations, in an area that may have a contaminated atmosphere from engine exhaust during extended full-load running, on or near fuel lines, and in an area with movement of powered mobile plant during delivery and placement. Section 291 of the Work Health and Safety Regulation 2025 (NSW) captures all four categories, and a safe work method statement is required under section 299. SafeWork NSW is the regulator. AS/NZS 3010 governs generating sets and AS/NZS 3000 the installation.
Two pieces of equipment on this job refuse to behave like ordinary electrical plant, and both refusals are by design. The first is the generator: a standby set exists to start by itself, with nobody there, the instant the mains fails. During installation and testing the crew works on a machine whose entire purpose is unattended automatic starting — and a mains dip, a BMS test signal, or someone else's switching elsewhere in the building is a start command. Killing the run command is not isolation; the start battery, the mains-fail sensing and the remote all have to be dealt with, and for mechanical work the batteries come off physically.
The second is the **automatic transfer switch, and it is the piece of equipment most often misunderstood on this job.** An ATS has two sources of supply by design. Isolate the generator and the mains side stays live. Isolate the mains and the generator will energise the other side the moment it starts. **There is no single isolation that makes an ATS dead** — a technician who has correctly locked out the machine he is testing is standing at a switch whose other half is still connected to the street. Every ATS task in this SWMS starts from that fact. The third hazard is slower and just as lethal: a load bank test runs the engine at full load for hours, which in an enclosed plant room means hours of exhaust, hours of heat, and temporary cabling carrying full rated current for the duration.
Hazards identified
14 hazards covered, sorted by priority.
Fatality — electrocution at an ATS whose second source remained live after the first was isolated
Fatality — the generator auto-starts on mains failure or a remote signal with a worker on the machine
Fatality or catastrophic burns — arc flash causes burn and blast injury together
Fatality — electrocution connecting or disconnecting load bank cabling at the generator terminals
Fatality — crush injury from a multi-tonne set or load bank craned into a plant room, roof or compound
Fatality — carbon monoxide asphyxiation during an extended full-load run in an enclosed plant room
Fire and electrocution — temporary load cabling overheating to failure while carrying full current for hours
Fatality or amputation — entanglement in the coupling, radiator fan or belt drives during running tests
Serious burns and fire — several hundred degrees of load bank discharge air igniting what it blows on
Fire or explosion — fuel spray from a pinhole onto a hot exhaust or manifold during an extended run
Fire — the load bank overheating to element failure when cooling airflow is lost or blocked
Arc burns and acid injury — a cranking battery delivering very high current into a short, and hydrogen on charge
Permanent noise-induced hearing loss from engine, fan and discharge together in a hard-surfaced room
Musculoskeletal injury from handling load cables, batteries, fuel containers and panels around the set
Control measures
Hierarchy-of-controls order: elimination → substitution → isolation → engineering → administrative → PPE.
- 1**Isolate BOTH sources at the ATS and prove every terminal set dead, including the load side** — an automatic transfer switch has two sources by design and no single isolation makes it dead. Record the two isolations separately on the permit, and never accept the mechanism's position as evidence of a dead busbar.
- 2Isolate and lock out the supply AND every start path — the control system in a locked off/manual state, the mains-fail sensing isolated, the remote and BMS start signal isolated, and **the start batteries physically disconnected for any mechanical work** — because a standby set exists to start with nobody there.
- 3Obtain an arc flash risk assessment establishing incident energy and approach boundaries at the actual ATS, generator terminals and switchboard, verify upstream protection, and recognise that a running generator contributes fault current the moment it excites.
- 4Connect and disconnect load bank cabling only with the set shut down, its start paths isolated and the terminals proved dead — **load cables are never connected to or removed from a machine that can start** — with a second person present for any energised task.
- 5Plan the lift with the set's actual mass and centre of gravity from the manufacturer's data, use the manufacturer's lifting points and rated gear to AS 4991, and keep every person out from under the load and out of the pinch between the load and fixed structure in a plant room where there is nowhere to retreat.
- 6Verify the exhaust system is complete, sealed and discharging clear of air intakes before the first start, monitor CO continuously in the room for every run, and run the test with the room unoccupied wherever the instrumentation can be read remotely.
- 7Size temporary cables for full test current and duration with grouping derating applied, **run them out straight and never coiled or on the drum because a coiled cable cannot shed heat**, pass single-cores through a common non-ferrous plate or single opening rather than individual holes in steel, and check terminations by thermometer or camera during the run.
- 8Fit and secure coupling, fan and belt guards for every run and never remove them for a running test, prove the emergency stop before the first run, and prohibit loose clothing, lanyards and unrestrained hair near the running set.
- 9Position the load bank so its discharge is clear of people, cabling, fuel, vegetation and air intakes to the manufacturer's stated distances, barricade the discharge zone, and treat the exhaust and engine as hot for a defined period after shutdown rather than testing by touch.
- 10Complete and pressure-test fuel connections before the first start, route fuel lines clear of the exhaust and manifold because a pinhole spray onto a hot surface ignites, plan fuel quantity so mid-run refuelling is not required, and bund the tank and transfer point.
- 11Prove the load bank's fan-failure interlock trips the load before applying load, keep intake and discharge clear for the whole run, site the bank on a non-combustible surface, and stop the run on any burning smell, discolouration or interlock alarm.
- 12Disconnect the earthed battery terminal first and reconnect it last with insulated tools, ventilate the battery location because charging generates hydrogen, and remove jewellery and watches for battery work.
- 13Assess noise exposure against the exposure standard, monitor runs from outside the room where instrumentation allows, and **identify the CO and fire alarm's visual indication before hearing protection goes on** — protection that blocks the alarm is a control that defeats another.
- 14Use cable trolleys and mechanical aids, flake and carry cable in short bights with two persons rather than dragging it in one length, handle batteries with carriers, and rotate tasks.
Applicable Codes of Practice
The installation, connection, protection and testing requirements for generating sets, including the transfer arrangement between sources that defines this product's central hazard.
The installation, connection, protection and verification requirements for the generator circuit, the ATS and the temporary load bank connection.
The benchmark for isolation, testing for dead and the conduct of work on and near low-voltage equipment — applied twice over at an ATS.
The fuel system serving the set, including day tanks, transfer during extended runs and ignition source control.
The benchmark for guarding of rotating plant and isolation and lock-out including automatic and remote initiation.
The benchmark for engine exhaust as a hazardous chemical, including the workplace exposure standard for carbon monoxide.
High-Risk Construction Work triggered
The set's fuel system is connected, tested and often replenished during the test, with fuel lines routed close to an exhaust and manifold at full operating temperature.
The work is carried out on an ATS with two live sources by design, on generator terminals that energise the moment the set excites, and on temporary load connections. Commissioning and transfer testing cannot be done dead — and the ATS's two-source architecture means there is no single isolation that makes the equipment safe.
A load bank test runs the engine at full load for hours in what is frequently an enclosed or below-grade plant room. That is hours of exhaust into a confined volume — a fundamentally different exposure from a five-minute weekly crank test.
A crane places the generator set and the load bank into plant rooms, onto roofs and into compounds, with the load travelling close to fixed structure in spaces that offer nowhere to retreat.
Carrying out high risk construction work without a compliant SWMS is an offence under the Work Health and Safety Regulation 2025 (NSW). An electrocution at an ATS is investigated on the question of whether the PCBU understood its own equipment: the two-source architecture is stated in AS/NZS 3010 and in every ATS manufacturer's manual. A SWMS recording 'isolate the generator' and nothing about the mains side of the transfer switch is evidence that it did not. Where a set is left with its automatic start defeated and the building subsequently loses supply, the failure of the standby system becomes part of the investigation independently of any injury.
Who this is for
- →Electrical contractors installing and commissioning standby and prime power generating sets
- →Generator suppliers and service contractors conducting load bank acceptance and maintenance testing
- →PCBUs installing standby power in commercial buildings, hospitals, data centres and industrial facilities
- →Principal contractors requiring a compliant SWMS before generator commissioning on a project
- →Facility managers engaging contractors for periodic load bank testing of installed standby plant
What you receive
- ✓A complete 14-hazard SWMS authored for NSW, citing the WHS Regulation 2025 (NSW), section 291 and section 299
- ✓Risk ratings across initial and residual, with the controls that bridge them written in full
- ✓Controls structured across all five levels of the hierarchy — elimination, substitution, engineering, administrative, PPE
- ✓The ATS two-source architecture authored as the lead hazard, with both isolations recorded separately on the permit
- ✓Auto-start isolation covering the control system, mains-fail sensing, remote/BMS signal and physical battery disconnection
- ✓The extended-run mechanisms other documents miss — CO over hours, coiled cable, eddy heating in ferrous gland plates
- ✓Restoration of automatic start written as a control, because a defeated standby set is a building with no backup power
- ✓A PPE schedule mapped task by task to the applicable Australian Standard
- ✓An emergency response section written for electrical contact, arc flash, unexpected start, CO alarm and fuel fire
- ✓A worker sign-on register and an HRCW checklist left blank for the PCBU to complete
- ✓Editable Microsoft Word format, ready to add project and PCBU detail
Worked example
A commissioning electrician finishes a load bank test on a new standby set in a basement plant room. The results are good. He shuts the set down, opens and locks the generator circuit breaker, hangs his tag, and opens the ATS to land the permanent load cables — the last task of the day. He is electrocuted by the mains side of the transfer switch. The investigation finds his isolation was correct, complete, and irrelevant. He isolated the machine he had been working on all day and had proved dead a dozen times. The ATS he then opened had a second source — the street supply — which had never been part of his isolation because it was never part of his work. The switch was in the mains position, feeding the building's board through the very cubicle he put his hands into. Every terminal he touched on the generator side was dead. He touched the other side. The contractor's SWMS ran to fourteen pages on generator isolation, auto-start defeat and battery disconnection, all of it correct. The word 'mains' did not appear in the isolation section. SafeWork NSW's position was that the document treated the ATS as an accessory to the generator rather than as a two-source device in its own right — and that a SWMS for generator work which does not state that isolating the generator leaves the ATS live has failed at the specific point where this equipment differs from every other machine the crew works on. This SWMS leads with that fact, requires both isolations recorded separately on the permit, and requires every terminal set including the load side to be proved dead before work.
Related legislation
- Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (NSW) — primary duty of care (s19), consultation (s47), notifiable incidents (ss35–38), industrial manslaughter (s26A)
- Work Health and Safety Regulation 2025 (NSW) — HRCW (s291), SWMS content and requirement (s299), SWMS review (s302)
- Work Health and Safety Regulation 2025 (NSW) — Part 4.7 Division 4, sections 154 and 157 — prohibition on energised electrical work
- Protection of the Environment Operations Act 1997 (NSW) — fuel discharge to stormwater or sewer as an offence
- Electricity Supply Act 1995 (NSW) and the licensing framework administered by NSW Fair Trading — electrical work licensing