Overview

Panelboard bonding is a critical procedure for maintaining the electrical safety of equipment and patients in healthcare facilities, and it has been extensively covered in Section 517.14. The 2023 NEC added a new exception to this section to permit insulated continuous copper bonding conductors to terminate with listed connections to aluminum or copper busbars not smaller than ¼ inch thick × 2 inches wide. This update simplifies the bonding process while upholding safety standards, providing a reliable ground path for panelboards in patient care areas.

Applying the 2023 Code

In healthcare facilities, proper bonding of panelboards is essential for maintaining a reliable and safe electrical system. Effective bonding not only helps prevent electrical faults and reduces the risk of electric shock but also supports the operation of life-saving medical equipment by providing a continuous and low-impedance path to ground. This is particularly important in patient care environments where the safety and well-being of patients and healthcare workers depend on a stable electrical infrastructure.

Section 517.14 of previous NEC versions mandated that the equipment grounding terminal buses of normal and essential branch-circuit panelboards serving the same patient care vicinity must be connected with an insulated continuous copper conductor not smaller than 10 AWG. Additionally, if panelboards serving the same vicinity were supplied from separate transfer switches on the essential electrical system, they also had to be connected in the same manner. This provided all panelboards within a patient care vicinity with a common grounding path. Although terminating equipment grounding conductors or bonding conductors to aluminum and copper busbars of specified dimensions had been a permitted practice in several NEC articles, the requirements were not mandated by the NEC for health care facilities. To rectify this, the 2023 NEC expanded Section 517.14 by adding a new exception, which now permits the insulated continuous copper bonding conductor to terminate with listed connections to aluminum or copper busbars not smaller than ¼ inch thick × 2 inches wide, provided the busbar is securely fastened and installed in an accessible location. This change simplifies the bonding process while maintaining safety standards, providing a reliable ground path for panelboards in patient care areas, thus preventing electrical faults and supporting the effective operation of life-saving medical equipment.

What’s New for the 2023 NEC?

The comparison of 2020 NEC and 2023 NEC in terms of Section 517.14, is given in the Table below.