If, for example, you were to take a neutral conductor and put some extra charge in the the middle somewhere.

This system is used with 110 V equipment and therefore no neutral conductor is needed.

Examples include a loss of a neutral conductor or shorted lines on the high voltage system.

In normal operation, all the current down the live conductor returns up the neutral conductor.

If the charge moves, thus realizing an electric current, especially in an electrically neutral conductor, that field is called magnetic.

Harmonics can cause neutral conductor current levels to exceed that of one or all phase conductors.

This measures the difference between the current flowing through the live conductor and that returning through the neutral conductor.

Neutral conductors are usually insulated for the same voltage as the line conductors, with interesting exceptions.

Portable appliances never rely on using the neutral conductor for case grounding, and often feature "double-insulated" construction.

When wired correctly, the alternative system does not pose an electrical code violation, since the ground and neutral conductors are never switched or interrupted.

Other arrangements of polyphase transformers may result in no neutral point, and no neutral conductors.

This requires a plug that can only be connected in one way to the socket, so that the energised and neutral conductors are not interchanged.

For long-distance transmission, earth return can be considerably cheaper than alternatives using a dedicated neutral conductor, but it can lead to problems such as:

These cases generally use a grounding conductor which is "isolated" from the neutral conductor specifically for the purposes of noise and "hum" reduction.

In the absolute worst case, the current in the shared neutral conductor can be triple that in each phase conductor.

A polarized plug is used to maintain the identity of the neutral conductor into the appliance but it is never used as a chassis/case ground.

But when you build one out of copper or some equivalent neutral conductor and run a current through it, it cancels out all electromagnetic field energy.

The sense coil (6) is a differential current transformer which surrounds (but is not electrically connected to) the live and neutral conductors.

This asymmetrical configuration effectively polarizes the connector ensuring that the line and neutral conductors are not exchanged in a properly wired installation.

In three phase four-wire ("wye") electrical power systems, when the load on the phases is not exactly equal, there is some current in the neutral conductor.

In a polyphase or three-wire (single-phase) AC system, the neutral conductor is intended to have similar voltages to each of the other circuit conductors.

HomePlug solved this problem by increasing the communication carrier frequencies so that the signal is conveyed by the neutral conductor, which is common to all phases.

Non-linear loads (e.g., computers) may require an oversized neutral bus and neutral conductor in the upstream distribution panel to handle harmonics.

This is particularly the case for the third harmonic, which causes a sharp increase in the zero sequence current, and therefore increases the current in the neutral conductor.

These two-pin connectors were not polarized, and thus the line and neutral conductors could be exchanged depending on which way the connectors were mated.