CBSE Class 12-science Answered

Potential energy can be defined as the capacity for doing work which arises from position or configuration. In the electrical case, a charge will exert a force on any other charge and potential energy arises from any collection of charges. For example, if a positive charge Q is fixed at some point in space, any other positive charge which is brought close to it will experience a repulsive force and will therefore have potential energy. The potential energy of a test charge q in the vicinity of this source charge will be:

where k is Coulomb's constant. In electricity, it is usually more convenient to use the electric potential energy per unit charge, just called electric potential or voltage