House Circuits

Live
The Live Wire carries current to the appliance at
a high voltage.

Neutral
Neutral is return path for an AC circuit which is
supposed to carry current in normal condition.
Neutral wire is always assumed to be charged (in
active circuit). This neutral wire is given to ground
(by grounding) to make the second terminal of
neutral wire at zero potential.

Earth or Ground is for safety concerns against

leakage or residual currents on the system via
least resistance path. While phase and neutral is
connected to main power wiring, earth may be
connected to body of equipment or to any
system which in normal condition doesn’t carry
current but in case of some insulation failure, is
supposed to carry some minor current.

Safety Example of Earth Wire -

The live and the neutral are the circuit wires that
get connected to the load (An electrical load is
an electrical component or portion of a circuit
that consumes active electric power.) when an
appliance is plugged into the outlet. It is possible,
and it does happen, that an unintentional contact
is made between a current carrying conductor
(live or neutral) and the metal frame of the load
device (a refrigerator for example). This can
happen if the insulation on the wire becomes
damaged and the copper conductor inside makes
contact with the frame of the refrigerator. Under
that situation, the refrigerator becomes energized
because it is now part of the return circuit.
Touching a metal part of the refrigerator can
cause an electric shock or arcing can occur
which can start a fire. The ground wire comes into
play here. The ground wire provides a low
resistance path for current to flow back to the
panel with high current which will cause the
circuit breaker to trip and clear the fault.