Current Transformer - Safety Precautions

Safety Precautions

Care must be taken that the secondary of a current transformer is not disconnected from its load while current is flowing in the primary, as the transformer secondary will attempt to continue driving current across the effectively infinite impedance. This will produce a high voltage across the open secondary (into the range of several kilovolts in some cases), which may cause arcing. The high voltage produced will compromise operator and equipment safety and permanently affect the accuracy of the transformer.