President Kim Byung-sook Korea Western Power Co. (KOWEPO) distributes a pamphlet as he participates in a campaign to ensure the safety of infrastructure across the nation. (Photos: KOWEPO)

Korea Western Power Co. (KOWEPO) is investing big to ensure “safety management” as a public entity specializing in power generation. KOWEPO has so far intensified efforts to ensure the safety of power generation sites, but the latest unexpected safety accident at the Taean Thermal Power Complex has served as an opportunity for KOWEPO to renew its determination to prevent more accidents, in which one of the company’s workers was killed, and the company and state’s reputation damaged.

Following the occurrence of the safety incident, a team consisting of about 90 people, including industry safety experts, workers, and civic organization members, conducted an inspection to find any loopholes related to the power company’s safety management regime and safety facilities in order to make KOWEPO one of the nation’s safest worksites.

KOWEPO has shifted a department in charge of safety to one under direct jurisdiction of the president in order to make decision-making nimbler. KOWEPO also inaugurated a safety-related department in each department of the Taean Thermal Power Complex. The power company has been implementing four tasks, including expanding investments designed to reinforce the safety of power generation facilities.

 
Each worksite has established an advanced voluntary safety and health management regime. KOWEPO has a companywide safety and health manual in place on which facility and work danger evaluations are made on a regular basis to eliminate danger factors in advance.

It is also noteworthy that KOWEPO turns to safety management based on mobile and state-of-the-art IT technologies. A safety reporting center is operated via smartphone, while how to act against any disaster is built at the website of the power company.

A huge budget has been established to improving and reinforcing the safety of power facilities. A combined 20.7 billion won is to be spent to take steps to the end, such as the installing of safety fences, totaling 12.9 km in length and placing of safety barriers at additional 64 places to prevent approaches to danger worksites and ensure safety.

An additional 262 light bars will be installed to ward off the danger of facilities in operation.

An additional 1,500 LED jack lights will be installed to more than double the intensity of illumination to improve the environment of worksites. CCTVs and thermal cameras will be put into blind spots and danger sites.

A view of the inaugural meeting of a companywide labor-management committee on occupational safety and health designed to ensure the safety of worksite that took place at KOWEPO headquarters in Taean, Chungcheongnam-do, on March 19.

KOWEPO Convenes Companywide Labor-Management Committee on Occupational Safety

KOWEPO convened a companywide labor-management committee on occupational safety and health at KOWEPO headquarters in Taean, Chungcheongnam-do, on March 19, designed to ensure the safety of worksites. The committee is a governing body in which labor and management decide on major occupational safety and health policies once each half in accordance with regulations of the power company.
Eighteen labor and management members, headed by Chief Kim Kyung-jae of the Technology Division from management side and Executive Vice Chairman Yoon Dong-ryul of Labor Union from labor side, participated in their meeting and discussed ways of making worksites safe in accordance with the revision of the Act on Occupational Safety and Health, which went into force this year.