In article ,
David Paste writes:
Hello all.

The world has a few differing domestic electrical standards, 100, 120,
240 volts, 50 and 60 Hz and so on. Industrial customers have yet more.

Distribution via high voltage AC, and now DC in places.

I understand why various areas of the world have these differences - due
to historical reasons, etc.

My question is that if we were to have a brand new electrical system,
common to all areas, what would, or could, it be? Still AC? 300 volts?
Different frequency?

No real reason to ask other than idle curiosity.

240V was too high for mains filament lamps. Now that they are gone,
there's no reason not to stay there or even go a little higher, to
reduce I²R losses back to substation. If we went to 250V, nothing
would need changing. If we were starting afresh, 300V or 350V would
be even better. (Nowadays, conductors are more expensive than their
insulation.) Nothing to choose between 50 or 60Hz. 100Hz would halve
the size of storage capacitors in PSU's, but has implications for
the size of mains synchronisation zones.

DC is too hard to handle at the power levels associated with a house.

--
Andrew Gabriel
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