PME lost neutral and over voltages.

[La Poste]

Howdy folks.

I have been reading a thread on another forum about PME and lost neutrals and one of the comments was this:

You may wish to give PME the boot but that will not save you from a fire due to over voltage caused by the loss of the supply neutral.

Also:

Going over to TT will not protect you from over voltage caused by the loss of the supply neutral. It could be the fires in these properties are due to over voltage causing damage to appliances setting them on fire.

IET Forums - "give PME the boot"

I can not see how losing a supply neutral would result in an over voltage.

Has any one got any ideas?

Thanks.

 

[IQ Electrical]

I think you posted this before the excellent answer from Geoff Blackwell.

 

[La Poste]

Indeed.

I wonder if anyone has a handy link or can recommend any reading material to help explain his answer.

My understanding of supply networks is very limited.

Thanks.

 

[Steve Riley]

Two things occured to me about this incident, firstly is it sensible to have main bonding connected to gas pipes? It sounds like the explosions were gas caused by excess current flowing down the bonding , causing the gas pipes to fail.

Secondly, if an instalation is designed around 230 volts, then all the calculations go out of the window for protective devices etc if the voltage is increased, surely a dangerous situation?

regards, Steve.