Understanding the 2023 Updates to the CSA C22.2 No. 301 Standard – Part 1

15 May 2025

A First Look at Key Changes Impacting Manufacturers and Electrical Inspectors under the Revised Industrial Electrical Machinery Standard

This blog is the first in a series dedicated to exploring the recent updates to the CSA C22.2 No. 301 standard and the implications for manufacturers. In addition to examining key changes, the blog series aims to raise awareness of the standard and provide electrical inspectors with insights into what they can expect from products approved to this standard. 

Overview of CSA C22.2 No. 301:2023, 2^nd Edition 

In late 2023 the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) published the 2^nd edition of CSA C22.2 No. 301 on “Industrial electrical machinery,” developed by the CSA Technical Committee for Industrial Products and listed in Appendix A of CSA C22.1:2024. The standard is to be used for compliance with the Canadian Electrical Code (CE Code). The first edition of the standard was initially published in 2016, however, once published several issues were identified and as such the 1^st edition of the standard was not adopted by certification agencies and a project to update it was soon started. 

If there are particular standards that Canada has developed or adopted for a specific type of machinery, that particular standard supersedes the use of CSA C22.2 No. 301. For example, Canada has started adopting the ISO 19085 series of standards for woodworking machines. If a single spindle vertical moulding machine were to require certification for Canada, CSA/ANSI C22.2 No. 19085-6 would be the correct standard to address the specific product features rather than CSA C22.2 No. 301.

Changes of Scope

There have been many changes to the CSA C22.2 No. 301 Standard that manufacturers need to be aware of, including significant changes to the scope regarding both expansions and restrictions. These include:

• Industrial robots and industrial robotic equipment have now been added to the standard. The specific requirements for robotics and robotic equipment will be covered in a future blog post.  
• A minor, but useful, change was to make it clear that this standard applies to both AC and DC machines. In the first edition the standard had a voltage limit of 1000 V ac. The voltage limit is now set at 1000V ac and 1500 V dc. For machines operating in excess of these voltage limits they are defined as high voltage (see CSA C22.1, Section 0, Definitions, “Voltage”) and will require special considerations that are not part of the standard.  
• Other changes to the scope section are clarifications to existing restrictions. The first is that the standard does not apply to on-road vehicular machineries and secondly that the products covered by CSA C22.2 No. 68 should still have CSA C22.2 No. 68 applied. CSA C22.2 No. 68 is for “Motor-operated appliances (household and commercial)” and is intended to cover items such as automotive servicing equipment, air compressors, and hand pallet trucks.  

It is expected that another version of CSA C22.2 No. 301 will not be published until sometime in/around 2028. CSA requires that standards are reviewed at least once every five years. If no changes are required or requested, then the standard will be reaffirmed for another five years. While there is no current active project with CSA to update the standard there will likely need to be some revisions to the standard. During the review of the standard there have been several minor errors identified which will be corrected in a next edition but were determined as not being significant enough to require an errata.