The schematic symbol for a capacitor actually closely resembles how it's made. A capacitor is created out of two metal plates and an insulating material called a dielectric. The metal plates are placed very close to each other, in parallel, but the dielectric sits between them to make sure they don't touch. The. Electric current is the flow of electric charge, which is what electrical components harness to light up, or spin, or do whatever they do. A capacitor's capacitance -- how many farads it has -- tells you how much charge it can store. How much charge a capacitor is currentlystoring. In, a capacitor is a device that stores by accumulating on two closely spaced surfaces that are insulated from each other. The capacitor was originally known as the condenser, a term still encountered in a few compound names, such as the. It is a with two.