General > General Technical Chat
The US electrical system
alpher:
--- Quote from: joseph nicholas on June 24, 2020, 09:13:28 pm ---Here we go again. In all of North America, the newest utility meters can turn off the power to your house without even going outside the main power station, its all done remotely. If the cops want to get you off guard to invade your home, all they need to do is cut the power to your house and you will come outside to see what the fuck is happening. Gotcha, without every getting their hands dirty. It's your world, more ways to have your liberties die.
--- End quote ---
:-DD :-DD
Have you ever been to this side of the pond?
WattsThat:
In general, only commercial/industrial customers pay power factor penalties in the US. As for the time of use, you can still get off-peak metering for heating swimming pools and other high kw usages at reduced rates.
The earlier comment about being out of power with the kettle on and not being able to make toast reminded me of the “ten second toast” video.
themadhippy:
--- Quote --- More popular is Time of Use billing and, around here, that is pretty much a dead issue.
--- End quote ---
we've economy 7 or whatever its called these days,originally meant for night storage heaters ,charge them up with cheap off peak electricity during the night then hope theirs enough energy stored to keep the house warm during the day.Originally it was a separate meter and fuse board so only the heaters were supplied by off peak but now its all done with 1 meter and the whole installation is charged at the lower rated during off peak hours,if your nocternal it can save you a few quid,the downside is the peak rate is slightly more than the standard tariff
bdunham7:
--- Quote from: rstofer on June 24, 2020, 09:43:48 pm ---
(the US has none, I have installed 400A residential panels)
--- End quote ---
I doubt those McMansions ever actually pull that much power at once, but might one reason to get a 400A service might be to get approval for more breaker spaces? I don't know if the code limits subpanels, but my 200A service is maxed out on breakers even with a 12-space subpanel and separate panels for the solar and the pool stuff. If it wasn't for tandem breakers, I'd be screwed. And yet there's almost no way to get my max current over 100A, even if I run the AC, charge the car and bake a cake all at once.
rstofer:
We do have 120/240V single phase in the US. Other countries have 240/415V three phase or perhaps the house doesn't get 3 phase, just 240V single phase. I don't see why the video author is so amazed, it's been this way forever! He would be more amazed to know that we got out of the 25Hz power business just recently in New York City. Amtrak still uses it!
Why single phase? Well, if you use earth for the high voltage return, you can string a single wire for miles and miles through 'fly-over' country to provide power to a house where the nearest neighbor is miles away! You can still see poles with a single insulator and just a single conductor.
This arrangement is known as SWER - Single Wire Earth Return
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-wire_earth_return
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