Is electrical energy the same as electrical potential energy?

Question

Is electrical energy the same as electrical potential energy?

Answer 1

no. potential is just that- potentially.  energy is actually doing work. potential can fail as soon as you attempt to make it do work. eg: if you measure 120v across a wire to ground that is potential. now if you plug in a working lamp but cant turn it on, that potential has gone way. this will happen if you have a broken wire. the end of the wire you are measuring can charge up to 120v over time but when work is demanded, the charge goes away because the broken wire can not supply enough energy to run the lamp. just think of dead batteries. they work in a remote but not in a cd player. this is because even if they both have 1.5v (potential) they cant supply enough power to run a motor in the cd  player (which would be real applied electrical energy)

Answer 2

No, they are quite different. Electrical energy has the ability to do work and is measured in Joules. Electrical potential energy is the amount of energy in an electrical field per unit charge that field could move to produce work. It is measured in Joules per Coulomb of charge or Volts.

A pretty good explanation, with graphic examples, can be found here:

http://www.regentsprep.org/Regents/physi...

Answer 3

potential energy is a form of energy