The neutral current is not necessarily zero even if the loads on each side of the circuit are identical. This is because the loads may not be in phase with each other.In the given example, the space heater (A) has a power factor of 1.0, which means that the current and voltage are in phase. The CFLs and computers (B) have a power factor of 0.6, which means that the current lags the voltage by 53.1 degrees.As a result of the phase shift, the currents in the two branches of the circuit will not cancel each other out perfectly. The neutral current will be the vector sum of the two branch currents.To calculate the neutral current, we can use the following formula:

In = sqrt(Ia^2 + Ib^2 - 2IaIbcos(θ))

where: In is the neutral current Ia is the current in branch A Ib is the current in branch B θ is the phase shift between the two currentsPlugging in the values given in the example, we get:

In = sqrt((8.33A)^2 + (8.33A)^2 - 2(8.33A)(8.33A)cos(53.1°))

In = 4.76A

Therefore, the neutral current in this example is not zero. Flag for review