 Electrostatic potential energy between two bodies in space is obtained from the force exerted by a charge "Q" on another charge "q" which is given by

where formula_19 is a vector of length 1 pointing from "Q" to "q" and "ε"0 is the vacuum permittivity.This may also be written using Coulomb's constant .If the electric charge of an object can be assumed to be at rest, then it has potential energy due to its position relative to other charged objects.