I know that electricity doesn’t just dissolve in the ground, it must return to the power source. But once the electricity is in the grounding device, how does it find its way back to the substation if it can be relatively far away?
Edit: I know ground isn’t used in normal working mode and where I live there’s no grounding in sockets.
In: 469
Ok, here’s a real ELI5 answer.
All the little electrons like to spread out as much as they can. When there’s a special place where electrons can go to spread out more than they can in the earth, that’s called “positive” – think “it’s a positive place to be for an electron so they want to go there.”
When there’s a special place where the poor electrons are more cramped together than they would be in the earth, that’s called “negative” – think “it’s a negative place to be for an electron so they don’t like it there.”
“Conductors” such as certain metals and other substances are like little roads the electrons can run through to escape negative charges and get to positive charges.
The earth is considered neutral because it’s sooo big with soooo many electrons in it compared to our power sources that it has plenty of electrons ready to run to your positive sources and plenty of space for electrons mashed together in your negative sources to run to.
Grounding is when you make a special road to the earth that electrons can use to get to the best place they can for themselves.
Edit: Added explicit definition for grounding.
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