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I don’t understand how you change between voltages with dc? Is it as efficient as AC using transformers?
by mrfusion 7y ago
I don’t understand how you change between voltages with dc? Is it as efficient as AC using transformers?
- bluGill 7y agoAsk an electrical engineer not me. The basic idea is you go to high voltage DC at the generation end, run a long ways (across states), turn the DC to AC and then run that through a transformer. It isn't as efficient as a transformer, but it isn't far behind so you more than get it back by the smaller losses in transmission.
- pjc50 7y agoEffectively a giant version of your laptop power supply. The conversion is not quite as efficient as a transformer, and certainly more expensive, but for long distances the whole system can be more efficient than AC. (The magic component is the "insulated gate bipolar transistor", sometimes using silicon carbide as the semiconducting element. These are capable of multi-kilovolt switching.)