What can sites covered by DSEAR do if the ‘Ex’ equipment they need is not available as ‘UKCA Ex’ next year?
- ATEX equipment, in distribution or in stock/stores is already on the market and can be installed (subject to it being to suitable Standards which is a EN/IEC 60079-14 requirement)
- Sites operate under DSEAR, not the UKCA legislation which is for manufacturers. DSEAR doesn’t specifically mention ATEX or UKCA (it just says equipment should be selected on the basis of Categories which both ATEX and UKCA use)
- Under DSEAR you have always been able to install any type of certified equipment (or even uncertified) if you do an appropriate risk assessment, the requirements are site specific and should be in the site DSEAR Documentation (EPD)
- The UK still uses EN/IEC 60079-14 for installation and inspection also it has no special requirements for what certication scheme is used, only that the certificates should be to the latest Standards (many ATEX Certificates are not but all UKCA Ex Certificates will be initially) and that they should always be to the 60079 series of Standards (for example, anything ATEX certified ‘EEx’ is not certified to the 79 series Standards) so just being ATEX didn’t mean you could install it anyway without further assessment.
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