Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

Only the last bit to your house or apartment is 110v. That doesn't make it more or less fragile, it just means you need more amps and correspondingly more wire in the final hop to the customer.



The difference in voltage results a real difference is in the distribution and how the phases are delivered - due to the lower voltage limiting how far it's economical to distribute the last mile, the US has many smaller transformers (those big cans on poles that catch fire sometimes), whereas Europe has fewer bigger transformer stations.

Although this has the opposite effect - the 120V system is less fragile, since the points of failure are more distributed (a blown transformer will affect fewer customers).

See: https://electrical-engineering-portal.com/north-american-ver...




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: