electrical power

Exactly the same as the power after the transformer. (ignoring transformer losses)

You are going to confuse the OP with semantics.

What the OP want to know is: What is the _voltage_ on typical distribution circuits in a residential area.

Primary distribution voltages vary from 2400 volts, line to neutral (4160 volts line to line) up to 34 kV line to line. In the USA, each phase is stepped down to 240 volts with a 120 volt center tap for residential loads. In other countries, the service voltages differ (220 V is common in Europe, for example). Commercial service is available at a variety of voltages. For all but the smallest commercial accounts, three phase is supplied. Some common values are 120/208 Volt Wye, 240 Volt delta with a 120V tap on one leg, 277/480 Volt Wye.

Some large industrial loads are supplied with the utilities primary distribution voltage.

No it's not semantics - it's being accurate. If he's going to write a paper, then it should be correct in use of the various engineering terms.

Then why didn't he say so?

These are US figures. In the UK we have 275kV, 132kV, 32kV and 11kV before the local distribution which is 415V (all the above being 3 phase voltages)

it's officially been 230V for the last 4 years.

US only

yes.

s/engineering/scientific/

Why not educate, rather than confuse? He'll never get it correct if you confuse him more. It's not like he made an ass out of himself and deserved a slap.

Have you never been in the situation where you didn't know enough to ask an intelligent question? How do you bootstrap yourself out of that situation, or do you just sit there dumb because you don't want to look stupid?

Judging by his rather elementary question about 3 phase motors, who can be sure? I wouldn't assume he ment power.

The 2 most common on residential streets is 4kv and 13kv. If there is only one insulator it is probably 4kv and if it is a stack it is probably 13kv (based on what FPL does around here.

If he doesn't know the difference between power and voltage he shouldn't be writing a "technical paper".

That might apply in the USA; in the UK only 415V is used in residential streets. The next voltage up is 11kV.

Well, I notice so far, no-one has bothered to explain the concepts of voltage, current and power before launching into lists of the different voltages to be found on a system

There is information here on a bunch of things:

This section should answer most of what you seem to want to know.

There is at least one mistake in the article. It's in section 10, "At the House". The EEs here will probably spot it in a second. I don't know about the rest of the article's accuracy. This is about a U.S. system.

Dean

How far can the 11kV/415V transformers be from the most distant house it feeds? In the US the 120V/240V rarely travels more than one pole from the transformer before the drop to the house except for older installations, and in many places there is one pole pig per house.

Of course the UK has a higher voltage plus the fact 3 phase is run almost the whole distance (so each conductor down the street carries about a third of the load of the street) allows a greater distance, but a whole street?

The local electric company typically has 7970/13800V in most places.

That's an interesting question to which I do not know the answer. I know there are two not far from me but they would appear to cover quite a wide area.

I have never been to the USA but from what I see on TV the typical US home is larger and they are further apart than in the UK. They tend to have more electrical appliances.

For example, the house I live in, which would be typical of many, is a semi-detached and measures about 30 feet from front to back and about 20 feet wide. It is about 15 feet across a shared drive to the next property.

Put the following into google earth: 52deg20'27.52N, 1deg34'56.97W for my home.

I know of transformers at 52deg20'26.65N, 1deg34'54.35W and

52deg20'24.92N, 1deg34'59.96W. There may be others further afield.

Except in sparsely populated rural areas, local supply distribution is by underground cable so they are less obvious than pole mounted transformers.

Heating and cooking is by natural gas (piped in from an underground main) leaving lighting as the main electrical load. We have a fridge, freezer, washing machine, vacuum cleaner, kettle, breadmaker and microwave along with the usual assortment of TV, Video and computer equipment. Incoming supply is fused at 80A (utility owned fuse) and they are expected never to fail except under major fault conditions. OUr fridges and freezers are also rather smaller than yours :-)

Air conditioning is very rare in domestic dwellings in the UK

As you say, the voltage is higher so the copper losses are lower. I suspect many of our streets are shorter than yours.

You snipped the "english" in front of "technical report". It appeared to me he was writing a report for an English class and was merely looking for information. Instead, he got slammed by the big bad, macho, engineers. You don't have to be a prick, just because you know something others don't.

On my street (SW Fla) they have a 120/240 bus with 3 evenly spaced transformers feeding it that runs about a block and picks up all the houses.

For my house the transformer is about 1/2 a mile away. Although it's pole mounted, the distribution is underground. Yes, the distribution is 3 phase, but most houses only have a single phase feed. My own property is an exception, there is a 3 phase supply - but only a single phase is used. This is probably due to the date of the building (1911) and the concept of balancing the load between the phases. The supply I have is fused at 60A, which is the norm over here.

and, as an engineer, you shouldn't be sloppy in your use of words or measurements. Otherwise you'll have something worse than a Mars' probe being destroyed on landing or a little problem at 3 Mile Island.

Lucky you.

I wish I had, having just bought an old "Progress" pillar drill on Ebay which has a 3-ph motor. I've looked at inverters/converters but I think the best way might be to re-motor with 1ph

*You* don't have to be sloppy. *You* don't have to slam "outsiders" who are. *You* can correct them nicely and teach them the correct terminology, while *you* answer their questions. If that's too much work, *you* could STFU and let others answer. But, I think I understand you now. Because we're engineers, the union doesn't allow us teach our "secret handshakes" to others. Instead we *must* slap them upside the head. Got it. I musta been out sick the day they covered that part of the union rules.

Google 'rotophase'.