Quote History Originally Posted By brickeyee:
Europe (and other parts of the world) use 240 V to a neutral line.
It is very dangerous, thus all the fancy plugs and protection.
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there is a tradeoff with higher voltage -- for a given delivered power, it results in lower current.
and lower current, in turn, results in less I^2R heating of conductors and surrounding insulation.
accordingly, this decreases the likelihood of fire due to overloaded conductors and devices etc.
example: instead of an extension cord carrying 13A to a 1500W load, it carries 6.5A, and so on.
summary: with 240Vac mains, the shock hazard increases but the fire hazard decreases.
(i'll leave the economics out of the discussion here, but 240Vac single phase is less expensive to deploy than 120Vac/240Vac split phase)
btw, to the complete amusement of the safety world, the modern situation means that we ended up completely backwards.
the USA, with a lot of newer wood stick frame residential housing, would benefit from higher voltage and lower current. (= reducing the fire hazard)
and Europe, with a lot of older stone and concrete residential housing, would benefit from lower voltage and higher current (= reducing the shock hazard)
but it didn't work out that way.