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
It’s not that electricity is flowing through the ground (though it will in an emergency)
So in a 3 prong plug, that round ground is for safety: if there’s an accident or short, it will discharge through it into ground hopfully popping a breaker.
The MAIN “hole” in the hose though is the neutral. You can tell it’s basically the same as a ground because if you open up an electrical box, neutrals and grounds attach to the same bar.
So there isn’t supposed to be electricity actively flowing along that neutral, but it serves as a highway for electricity to in theory flow to the ground. In practice though electrical components that consume electricity use it up before the power gets to the neutral.
“it must return to the power source”
This is incorrect, electricity is simply seeking its path to ground, or the place of least electrical charge/resistance. Otherwise, electricity would be flowing out of your house as well as in (ok for people with solar panels this CAN happen)
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