Neutral Vs Ground Bus Bar

Current carried on a grounding conductor can result in objectionable or dangerous voltages appearing on equipment enclosures.

Neutral vs ground bus bar.

Ground is therefore universal reference which is always taken to be zero potential. Ground bus bar some service panels have a separate bus bar for ground wire connections instead of a neutral ground bus. The difference between a ground wire and neutral wire is often misunderstood. You can see this clearly in the picture below as there are multiple neutral wires feeding into a single screw in more than one instance in this spaghetti mess of wires.

As the neutral point of an electrical supply system is often connected to earth ground ground and neutral are closely related. It is true that according to code if it is your entrance or main panel you can put neutral and ground wires on the same bus. The problem primarily comes from the inappropriately named neutral wire. Neutral is provided by the power company to make the path of electricity closed.

In any distribution panel there are individual bars for each termination. In an entrance panel both bus bars are grounded to the box. A double tapped neutral is when more than one neutral wire is fed into a single screw terminal on the neutral bus bar in the main electric panel. The ground buss is in direct contact with the metal enclosure.

Earth or ground wire is assumed to be at zero potential while the potential of neutral depends upon unbalance between the wires. In this case the ground bus is electrically connected to the neutral bus in main service panels only. The neutral is isolated from the metal enclosure. Thank you for your question regarding the separation of the ground bar from the neutral bar in an electrical sub panel it is our pleasure to help.