ELI5. Electricity falling off

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I have been told that an electric cord/cable/line after so many feet will lose or have electricity fall off and weaken before reaching the item it is meant to power.
How does this happen.
Where does the electricity go if energy doesn’t just go away and the cable/ cord/ line are insulated?

In: Other

3 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

They are referring to voltage drop. Voltage is electrical pressure pushing current (amps) through a wire. Think of it like a water hose. Pressure pushes water through a hose. The walls of the hose resist the flow of water. As long as the hose isn’t too long, your pressure at the end is usable, but if the hose is too long, the pressure drops off along the way due to the resistance of the wall. Same thing happens to voltage in a wire.

Anonymous 0 Comments

When electricity flows through metal, the metal warms up. This is how kettles and other electrical heaters work.

Usually the cables supplying electricity to your house are thick and specially made to have Low resistance, meaning less electricity is used up as heat in these cables. But over Long distances there can indeed be some power loss as heat.

Anonymous 0 Comments

It’s lost by friction of the electrons moving through the wire which release the lost energy as heat. The longer the wire the more time it has to lose energy due to resistance of electrical flow.