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Single phase power transmission took many years to develop. The earliest developments were based on the early alternator inventions of 19th century Parisian scientist Hippolyte Pixii, which were later expanded upon by Lord Kelvin and others in the 1880s. The first full AC power system, based on single phase alternating current, was created by ...
It is the form of electrical power that is delivered to homes and businesses through the electrical grid in many parts of the world. People use this electricity to power everyday items (such as domestic appliances, televisions and lamps) by plugging them into a wall outlet. The voltage and frequency of electric power differs between regions. In ...
Electric power is the rate of transfer of electrical energy within a circuit.Its SI unit is the watt, the general unit of power, defined as one joule per second.Standard prefixes apply to watts as with other SI units: thousands, millions and billions of watts are called kilowatts, megawatts and gigawatts respectively.
In the UK a typical urban or suburban low-voltage substation would normally be rated between 150 kVA and 1 MVA and supply a whole neighbourhood of a few hundred houses. Transformers are typically sized on an average load of 1 to 2 kW per household, and the service fuses and cable is sized to allow any one property to draw a peak load of perhaps ...
Power factors below 1.0 require a utility to generate more than the minimum volt-amperes necessary to supply the real power (watts). This increases generation and transmission costs. For example, if the load power factor were as low as 0.7, the apparent power would be 1.4 times the real power used by the load.
The normal technical term (in both British and International English) for an AC power socket is socket-outlet, [4] but in non-technical common use a number of other terms are used. In British English the general term is socket, but there are numerous common alternatives, including power point , [ 5 ] plug socket , [ 6 ] wall socket , [ 7 ] and ...
BS 546, "Two-pole and earthing-pin plugs, socket-outlets and socket-outlet adaptors for AC (50-60 Hz) circuits up to 250 V" describes four sizes of plug rated at 2 A, 5 A (Type D), 15 A (Type M) and 30 A. The plugs have three round pins arranged in a triangle, with the larger top pin being the earthing pin.
NEMA 5-20R outlets, which are similar to type B but have a T-shaped neutral slot, are sometimes used for higher current 120 V equipment (up to 20 A). Homes are typically provided with 120/240 V split-phase power; NEMA 14-30R and 14-50R receptacles are provided on 240 V circuits for clothes dryers and electric stoves .