Neutral Line Color
Normally the neutral wire is double protected by repeating the grounding pen at the neutral point n of the secondary side of the transformer and the protective earth pe.
Neutral line color. Identifying electrical wiring properly is an important step when replacing a light fixture installing an outlet or handling other electrical work. A neutral wire is generally prevalent in a polyphase ac system. Color codes for wires helps ensure easy and proper identification of the wire types and safety precautions required. In the new color code for electrical wires brown is used for live or line blue is used for neutral conductor and green for earth.
A neutral wire in ac power provides a low impedance path to earth or ground to prevent passage of heavy voltage through the equipment. The neutral line is the line drawn from the neutral point n of the secondary side of the transformer and forms a loop with the phase line l to supply power to the electrical equipment. Neutral black note the installation colour codes are quite flexible so caution is needed actives phases can be almost any colour and are sometimes the same colour. Black red and blue are used for 208 vac three phase.
Us ac the us national electrical code only mandates white or grey for the neutral power conductor and bare copper green or green with yellow stripe for the protective ground in principle any other colors except these may be used for the power conductors. Brown orange and. Any other colors expected the above mentioned can be used for live line or hot wires. Learn how to identify wires for your safety.
Neutral wires have the important task of returning currents to the original power source. In case of a three phase power supply the combination of red yellow and blue are used for the active line power conductors black color for neutral conductor and green or green yellow for protective ground. This is a necessary function of ac power and we need to be able to identify these wires properly and make sure we use them for the right voltage connections. Combining neutral with ground edit stray voltages created in grounding earthing conductors by currents flowing in the supply utility neutral conductors can be troublesome.
The hot and neutral lines should be two distinct colors but the colors can vary for the different wires. Below we have also included some of the more common colour codes used throughout the us and europe in case you have imported appliances and wiring. While all wire colors are important to understand and utilize properly the neutral wire is a consistently overlooked piece of any electrical system.