Directive 2013/35/EU of the European Parliament and Council, among other things, sets values for the occupational exposure of workers regarding the health and safety risks arising from electromagnetic fields. In order to ensure worker safety, the Finnish national grid operator, Fingrid Oyj, conducted several measurements of electromagnetic fields at its substations. One of the goals of the measurements was to ensure that a magnetic flux density of 1000 µT (rms), set as the lower action value by the EU directive, was not reached in any location accessible to substation workers. The highest magnetic flux densities at substations can be found near shunt reactors and their cables, which is why the measurements were focused on those areas. The lower action value of 1000 µT (rms) was surpassed at two locations. This discovery led to immediate actions to prevent workers from accessing these locations.
The aim was to study the operation of insulin pumps under a 400 kV transmission line (two test places) and possible disturbances that the lines could have caused. Three different insulin pumps were attached one at a time to the subject’s clothes. The diabetes nurse started the pumps before the tests to ensure the correct settings were being utilized. After walking under the power lines when meters were running, she tested if the meters had operated properly. At the first test site (A), the electric field was 5.0–5.1 kV/m and the magnetic field 8.6–10.9 μT, and in the second test place (B), the fields were 7.7–8.5 kV/m and 5.7–9.2 μT. The pumps worked perfectly: no disruption was detected in the flow, display or menu movement, and the events were registered correctly. Only the remote control, which worked well before and after the test, could not reliably receive additional doses. However, the functions of the insulin pump are not dependent on the functionality of the remote control device, so the study suggests that insulin pump users can move safely under the power lines.
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