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Why are Power Grids so Large?

Former Community Member
Former Community Member
Why are power systems so large and interconnected? For example, what technical obstacles prevents the US eastern interconnection from being 8 isolated islands? Why not separate them by ISO/RTO? Why does every power grid in the world strive to be as large as geography allows?


Better yet why not have scattered power plants about (with redundancies of course) feeding load radially? A lot simpler and a lot less to go wrong.

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    As to why they chose 60 cycles over 50 I have no clue



    I believe it goes back to Tesla and the early days of a.c. Tesla, worked out (for the equipment of the time) that the most efficient arrangement was 3-phases, 60Hz and around 220V. The Americans adopted the 60Hz but but kept the 110-ish volts of their existing d.c. system (which probably was safe to touch - even today we regard up to 120V d.c. as ELV) - while Europe adopted the 220V bit but for some reason preferred 50Hz.


    One theory I rather liked was that 220/240V was adopted in regions that drank tea, 110V in areas that preferred coffee. The logic being that you need 2-3kW to boil a reasonable sized kettle to make a pot of tea but practical sized domestic plugs & sockets can only carry 10 to 16A - hence 220-ish volts in tea areas (i.e. British and Dutch influence). Coffee percolators could manage on less power so that 110V was sufficient - e.g. in the US.


       - Andy.
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  • 0

    As to why they chose 60 cycles over 50 I have no clue



    I believe it goes back to Tesla and the early days of a.c. Tesla, worked out (for the equipment of the time) that the most efficient arrangement was 3-phases, 60Hz and around 220V. The Americans adopted the 60Hz but but kept the 110-ish volts of their existing d.c. system (which probably was safe to touch - even today we regard up to 120V d.c. as ELV) - while Europe adopted the 220V bit but for some reason preferred 50Hz.


    One theory I rather liked was that 220/240V was adopted in regions that drank tea, 110V in areas that preferred coffee. The logic being that you need 2-3kW to boil a reasonable sized kettle to make a pot of tea but practical sized domestic plugs & sockets can only carry 10 to 16A - hence 220-ish volts in tea areas (i.e. British and Dutch influence). Coffee percolators could manage on less power so that 110V was sufficient - e.g. in the US.


       - Andy.
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