What does a neutral do?
In: 150
ELI5: The Neutral returns the electricty back to the generation point in a single-phase system, completing the circuit and allowing it to do work.
ELI10: As others have mentioned, in North America most homes are fed by what’s called a split-phase transformer, meaning that it takes one phase of the transmission grid onto the “primary” coil (Usually operating at or above 5000 V, notated as 5kVA) and lowers the voltage to 240 Volts AC on either end of the “secondary” coil. A connection terminal is then placed into the center of the secondary winding and provides the Neutral for all of your ‘single phase’ devices downstream. When you measure for VAC between this center point and one of the end points on that secondary coil, you get 120VAC, amd when you measure between the two end points you get 240VAC and the Alternating Current changes the polarity of those lines, allowing each line to serve as a Neutral interchangeably when used together for something like a stove or AC unit. This switching between hot and neutral happens roughly 60 times a second in North American systems, and 50 (I think, Europe is weird to my Yankee arse) times a second in Europe.
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