Why Is the North American Power Grid 60 Hz?

Comments · 495

• ZE

  @ZenthralCode · 1 day ago · pinned

  𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝐃𝐨𝐞𝐬 𝐄𝐮𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐞 𝐔𝐬𝐞 𝟓𝟎 𝐇𝐳 𝐈𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝟔𝟎 𝐇𝐳? 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐒𝐨𝐨𝐧!!!

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• JO

  @joeylawn36111 · 8 days ago

  In 1903 we learned how to fly, Later we also wanted electricity in our airplanes. But devices that used 50 or 60 Hertz frequency were too heavy for aircraft use. So a standard of 400Hz was used in aircraft power systems.

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• MI

  @MikeSage-hv3hz · 1 day ago

  Here in Western Australia, we have a 50 Hz system. However, until the early 1980's, Kalgoorlie had an independant system that ran at 40 Hz.

• HO

  @hoffmannfrohmut8001 · 8 days ago

  Interesting Fact: The power frequency in Japan is divided into two regions: Eastern Japan uses 50 Hz (including Tokyo), and Western Japan uses 60 Hz (including Kyoto, Osaka, and Nagoya).

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• TH

  @thiloreichelt4199 · 8 days ago

  There is one error at the beginning: &quot;The voltage a transformer induces in it&apos;s secondary winding depends on frequency&quot;.<br>Simply no, it just depends on the winding ratio and kids, you&apos;ll loose points in high school for saying otherwise.<br>What depends on the frequency is the amount of power you can transfer through a given iron core. Power is transferred through the magnetic field CHANGING. There is an upper limit for the magnetic field in the core and once you hit that, no more power can be transfered. It will just heat the transformer.

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• HE

  @Hee-o1p · 8 days ago

  Great channel with great questions and great answers.

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• LA

  @LarryLaird-k8c · 3 days ago

  I&apos;ve been doing electrical work all my life and never knew about the flicker effect. Thanks 😅😅

• ET

  @etienneOW · 7 days ago

  As one who lived through the 25 to 60 cycle conversion in Ontario in the 50s and spent my working career in the electric utility sector, I enjoyed your review of this issue. One thing that really “accelerated” the conversion in the 50s though was the growing postwar adoption of fluorescent lighting where the flicker was extremely annoying. One thing I remember explicitly at that time were changing out the motors in our electric clock and the chiller units for the chilled storage associated with our turkey processing operation. I don’t recall but I suspect something similar for motorized appliances. It was quite the undertaking. <br><br>25 cycle service continued for a segment of the Ontario Hydro grid for decades. In the 70s I was on temporary assignment in Timmins (Northern Ontario) where we ran a new 500kV transformer station which also controlled a couple of old 25 cycle generating stations and a 25 cycle transmission/ distribution setup supplying a number of long-operating mines in the area - quite the age contrast in technology. One oddity was that there was a semi-isolated community “in the middle of nowhere” that took power from the 25 cycle transmission line through &nbsp;frequency-converters i. e. motor generator sets. The output from these was 62.5 hz because a 2:5 conversion setup was a lot cheaper than a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_F896X42owE&amp;t=312">5:12</a> conversion setup. It made virtually no difference for any appliance except electric clocks.

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• RA

  @randyshoquist7726 · 8 days ago

  Around 1970 I went on a high school field trip to the Bonneville Power Administation in Portland, Oregon. There was a synchronous motor clock on the wall of the control room. When the clock got two seconds off of true time (from WWV or USNO, I presume) they would adjust the generator frequency on the grid. I don&apos;t know how often that happened.

• OS

  @oswaldjh · 3 days ago

  Weight reduction at higher frequencies is real in the Avionics Industry as all systems on an aircraft run at 400Hz.<br>The power transformers were as small as the matching transformers in a hand held transistor radio.

• IK

  @ikke12345 · 7 days ago

  You can change the motor frequency independently from the grid frequency

• SU

  @SubaramRamanathan · 4 days ago

  Great.<br>Thank you so much.<br>Very good information.

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