HomePower Systems What is Peterson Coil? - Its Function in Neutral Grounding November 20, 2021 ° The Peterson coil is an adjustable iron-cored reactor connected between the neutral point and ground. It has the capability of producing resonance by turing the capacitance of the healthy phases during a line to ground fault. It is also known as an arc suppression coil or ground-fault neutralizer. The Peterson coil prevents the arcing grounds which leads to overvoltage on systems with an underground neutral During an earth fault, the arcing grounds are self-extinguished by the Peterson coil, and also in the case of sustained faults, it reduces the earth current to a low value so that the continuity of supply to the healthy phases is not interrupted. Tappings are provided to tap the coil for a suitable value of inductive reactance depending upon the length of the transmission line and the capacitance to be neutralized. Reactance of Peterson Coil : The connection of the Peterson coil in resonant grounding for a 3-phase system is shown in the below figureLet the earth fault has occurred at point F in phase R. The fault current Ip starts to flow from point F to the ground and then to neutral N through the Peterson coil and back to the faulty phase. Fault current Ir flowing through the Peterson coil is given by, IE = Vpw/XL Vph = Phase voltage X= Inductive reactance of the peterson coil The line-to-earth capacitance of the healthy phases, phase Y and phase B is Cy and Cg respectively. The voltage across the line to earth in a resonant grounded system during an earth fault is increased by V3 times because the system behaves as an ungrounded system. Henee, if lis the charging current of phase to earth, then it becomes 31 per phase during an earth fault. The charging currents of the healthy phases are displaced by 120°. Therefore the resultant charging current is 13 times that of the charging current per phase,Io =V3.N3I= 31 Where, the charging current per phase, 1 = VpW/Xc Vph = Phase voltage Xc = Capacitive reactance of line to earth. Therefore, I= 31 = 3(VpW/Xc) But in resonant grounding, for neutralization of arcing ground, the value of inductance L of Peterson coil is adjusted such that the fault current Ir becomes equal to the resultant charging current Ic. 1 1 3a2C 3(2nf)2C