Electrical Panel Neutral And Grounding

By shunting excess line voltage back to the panel s neutral pole the ground current forces the circuit breaker to trip.

Electrical panel neutral and grounding.

A second panel or sub panel should have the neutral and ground terminals or bars isolated from each other this is why the main circuit feed to the sub panel must have 4 wires with a dedicated insulated wire for the neutral and a separate wire for the ground. Three wires come from the electric meter and go into the main panel. Sub panels are grounded through the cable that provides the sub feed circuit power. Another ground connection is made by the grounding electrode conductor or gec.

This is a brief walk through of a simple grounding and bonding system and what happens with the flow of current in normal operation and in a ground fault c. Neutral is a circuit conductor that normally completes the circuit back to the source. This is a bare copper wire that connects the neutral ground bus bar to a ground rod driven into the earth near the service panel or to metal rebar in the home s. Grounding a sub panel.

When grounding an electrical panel the following applies grounding a main panel. Main panels and sub panels. The panel that s located directly after the electric meter is the main service panel. Two live hot wires and one neutral.

That is for simple single panel installations. For multiple panels the situation is more complex. The code defi nes grounding as the connecting to ground or to a conductive body that extends the ground connection and the code defi nes ground as the earth. The tripped breaker shuts off the circuit s current preventing a potentially dangerous situation.

Please see nec article 250 28 for when to make a neutral to ground connection. Neutral is usually connected to ground earth at the main electrical panel street drop or meter and also at the final step down transformer of the supply. Basically grounding is connecting to the earth. The electrical path main panel.

The ground bar is bonded internally when an external bond to earth is installed as described at the link for electrical grounding below. The code defi nes bonded or bonding as connected connecting to establish electrical continuity and. The main bonding jumper provides a ground connection between the neutral ground bus and the service panel.