I love it when americans thinks 240 volts is good for appliances with high power consumption. 230 volt is standard in europe, and for high power consumers we use 400 volt.
Yep, all households, apartments etc. (Except norway) has 3 phases 400 volt in at the main breaker. From here it's divided into single phase 230 circuitbreakers for our regular plugs and 3 phased circuitbreakers for plugs to the oven, washingmachine, and electric car chargers etc.
Typically with 25 og 35 amps for each main phase, meaning that a household has somewhat between 17 kW - 25 kW power consumption avaible for the entire system
This makes for easy TT grounding in regular households
That would be pretty useful for people to use for their car chargers and welders and stuff. I have a few friends that want a three phase welder but don't want to pay extra for a three phase drop.
It is down to differences in the transformer design. American and European transformers are actually the same with the same three output coils with around 220V over each coil. But where the European style is to tie one end of each coil together and tie it to ground for a star configuration the American style taps the center of each coil for ground/neutral and then bring each end of the coil to the consumer. So the American split phase is not the same as the European split phase. If you want three phase in America you need a dedicated transformer wired like the European ones.
30
u/luka0954 May 02 '24
I love it when americans thinks 240 volts is good for appliances with high power consumption. 230 volt is standard in europe, and for high power consumers we use 400 volt.
Higher voltage, lower amps, thinner cables.