Before you consider opening an electrical panel to carry out a survey with a thermal imaging camera you should ask yourself the following questions:
1. Is the panel high voltage above (415 volts) or low voltage? If the answer is high voltage then you should not be opening the panel under any circumstances unless you are an authorised person; for more information see www.faradaycentre.co.uk who specialise in high voltage training and run authorised person courses.
2. What is it that you are switching off? You really should have an authorised person on site who knows the equipment that can open the panels for you. Generally when you are doing this type of work you would have that electrical authorised person with you to ensure that you also don't shut down any critical plant / machinery.
3. If after this you are doing it on your own and the environment is pretty low risk you should be able to open panels with relevant training as you need to know what you can do and what you cant do.
You won’t have to prove that something is not live using test equipment but would say you do need to know the dangers which a training course would help you with.
4. If the inspections are going to be a regular occurrence then consider installing thermal windows which will allow you to carry out the survey without opening the panels. You can find more information about them here http://www.thermoteknix.com/content/english/thermal_imaging_ir_products/infrared_inspection_ports/index.html
Written by Barry Atkins at www.pass-thermal.co.uk
