Validity of an approximate electrostatic interaction model

We explain the reasons why a simple approximate expression for the interaction energy between two parallel uniformly charged wires works so well for the calculation of the stored electrostatic energy of a uniformly charged square and/or rectangular plate. The expression under consideration was also found to be very accurate when calculating the total energy of a model consisting of an arbitrary number of uniformly charged wires placed parallel to each other along a one-dimensional regular lattice when the number of wires is not very small. One can use the derived approximate expression for the interaction energy instead of the more elaborate exact one in all circumstances where there is no need for an extremely high accuracy.