11 ms·

It's also quite a helpful metric. Most British people are aware that the national grid used to spend a lot of time making sure they had the power available to

It's also quite a helpful metric. Most British people are aware that the national grid used to spend a lot of time making sure they had the power available to draw during the commercial breaks of mass-media TV events (series finales, half time in a cup match etc) purely for the nation boiling water with electric kettles en masse. Great intersection of hard science (energy necessary to boil water + extremely efficient energy transfer) and everyperson knowledge. Good journalism!

tomp 5y ago
Makes you wonder if the US idea of using just 110 volts isn't better... not from an individual viewpoint (slower to boil water) but from the grid perspective.
- simfree 5y ago
  110v does nearly halve your peak power draw... But the transformers have a bit of added complexity and in homes and businesses you need thicker wire to move the same amount of power.
- bityard 5y ago
  The US grid (the last-mile bits anyway) isn't 110 volts, it's 220. It's just our houses that are wired for (mostly) 110 V. Edit: I would love to see some sort of hybrid 110/220 V residential wiring/plug standard take hold in the US. It would require more expensive cable in the walls (since you need one additional conductor) and plugs, but it's totally doable. Most electrical products and appliances made these days are easily converted between 110/220, or run just fine on either.
  - toast0 5y ago
    There is NEMA 14, which has hot,hot,neutral,ground, but I don't think anything lower than 20amps is available, and that's a locking one, 30 amps is available without locks, but 30 amps at 220v is a lot of power for household outlets. You'd need larger wire in the walls, not just more of them. Any sort of outlet upgrade would need a really good plan for how to make it viable, because even if 100% of new construction used the new outlet, it would be decades before you could sell devices that relied on it.
    - hedora 5y ago
      You could include a second cable with the teapot, and wire it to work with 110 or 220 depending on which cable is used. This is already reasonably common. I have plenty of useless European cables laying around to prove it.
    - btbuilder 5y ago
      I have a 20A 220 circuit for an electric kettle with multiple 6-15Rs. It has a 20A gfci breaker.
  - hedora 5y ago
    You could just run US-style appliance circuits to your kitchen, etc. Those are sometimes three conductor and other times four conductor. However, I doubt it'd pass inspection if they were easily accessible from the counter-top. If you're going to flout building codes anyway, it'd probably be easier/more practical to just run circuits with foreign outlets instead. Also, it might be easier to find appropriate GFCI breakers.
    - btbuilder 5y ago
      Use 6-15R or 6-20R. I think it would pass inspection because most safety requirements around gfci and afci don’t apply to 240V circuits
      - coryrc 5y ago
        They do now, but only when accessible by a person. Even car charging station outlets do (even though every car charging station has gfci built in...)
        btbuilder 5y ago
        Ah looks like this was a change in 2017. With any outlet there’s no guarantee what will end up plugged in so it’s logical to require it even if the purpose is an EV charger. Thanks!
    - thedougd 5y ago
      EU is on 50hz AC, where as the US is on 60hz. It would work fine for purely resistive appliances, and possibly devices with switching mode power supplies, but some devices would be unhappy plugging in to the wrong frequency at 220V. I'm not sure about the phase alignment but that may be an issue as well. US is split phase, but Europe has 220 on a single conductor?
      - xxs 5y ago
        it's 230 (+-10%) nominal not 220. At my house it's around 235. It's 230v phase/live to neutral and 400V between live wires in 3phase. Nowadays 3-phase (120degree between each) is a commodity.
  - pkulak 5y ago
    I kinda like that all but a couple outlets in my house can't kill me. Also, I boil my water on an induction stove plugged into 50 amps at 220 volts. I'm not waiting around, to put it mildly.
    - baq 5y ago
      30A at 400V is how we roll in the EU.
      - orra 5y ago
        Wow. A typical induction hob in the UK is 32A at 230V. 230V is of course the nominal voltage of a single phase, although in practice in the UK the voltage is closer to 240V. That's only 7.35kW of power. Do you have significantly more powerful cookers?
        kuschku 5y ago
        400V is only used for stoves or instant water heaters, but e.g. our stove uses 11kW actually. If you don’t have these amounts of energy available, the temperature your instant water heater can reach or the speed with which you can cook obviously suffers (which I suspect is one of the reasons why americans prefer gas stoves so much).
        xxs 5y ago
        the 3phase is used for motors - a lot more efficient (and the better power factor) than the single phase ones.
        kuschku 5y ago
        For industrial applications definitely, but at home there's few people who power motors with triphase or five phase power.
        baq 5y ago
        these are 3-phase stoves, they require a certified electrician to install, because they don't have plugs and there's no wall socket - just a place into which you can easily connect cables.
  - AnssiH 5y ago
    > The US grid (the last-mile bits anyway) isn't 110 volts, it's 220. It's just our houses that are wired for (mostly) 110 V. Similarly, in most of continental Europe phase-to-phase is 400V but most outlets are 230V. E.g. in my apartment only the stove has a 400V three-phase (4-wire) connection.
    - xxs 5y ago
      but 3phase (120degrees) is a lot better for powering motors than the 2 phase one in the US
      - jessaustin 5y ago
        3-phase is available in USA, but it's typically not provided to residences.
        xxs 5y ago
        of course, the heavy motors/industrial equipment loves 3 phase AC. Higher voltages allow lower losses in the conductors, hence less copper needed everywhere incl. small motors as the current us lower through and through.
- tigershark 5y ago
  No, it’s absolutely not. They consume a lot of power on average as far as I remember. They have just more transmissions loss at a lower voltage and I guess that it would be a pain to use a normal induction cooktop with 9-10KW at 110V.
- CamperBob2 5y ago
  Power is power. To the extent 110V is slower to boil water, it's a reflection of either inadequate power delivery capacity due to the higher currents required, or wasted heat in places other than the kettle. Either way, heat gets lost over time. You're almost always better off with higher voltage and less current, when given a choice. An obvious exception being when you get shocked. :-P Or when corona losses come into the picture.
seanw444 5y ago
Wasn't there a relevant Tom Scott video on the subject?
- moreati 5y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Jx_bJgIFhI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Jx_bJgIFhI about pumped hydro at Dinorwig Power Station
nr2x 5y ago
Yes, and some places world cup viewership can take down the grid!
chemengds 5y ago
Whilst kettles are used as the unit of measurement the main driver of power consumption spikes during those breaks was electric pump for toilet cisterns.

tomp 5y ago

Makes you wonder if the US idea of using just 110 volts isn't better... not from an individual viewpoint (slower to boil water) but from the grid perspective.

simfree 5y ago
110v does nearly halve your peak power draw... But the transformers have a bit of added complexity and in homes and businesses you need thicker wire to move the same amount of power.
bityard 5y ago
The US grid (the last-mile bits anyway) isn't 110 volts, it's 220. It's just our houses that are wired for (mostly) 110 V. Edit: I would love to see some sort of hybrid 110/220 V residential wiring/plug standard take hold in the US. It would require more expensive cable in the walls (since you need one additional conductor) and plugs, but it's totally doable. Most electrical products and appliances made these days are easily converted between 110/220, or run just fine on either.
- toast0 5y ago
  There is NEMA 14, which has hot,hot,neutral,ground, but I don't think anything lower than 20amps is available, and that's a locking one, 30 amps is available without locks, but 30 amps at 220v is a lot of power for household outlets. You'd need larger wire in the walls, not just more of them. Any sort of outlet upgrade would need a really good plan for how to make it viable, because even if 100% of new construction used the new outlet, it would be decades before you could sell devices that relied on it.
  - hedora 5y ago
    You could include a second cable with the teapot, and wire it to work with 110 or 220 depending on which cable is used. This is already reasonably common. I have plenty of useless European cables laying around to prove it.
  - btbuilder 5y ago
    I have a 20A 220 circuit for an electric kettle with multiple 6-15Rs. It has a 20A gfci breaker.
- hedora 5y ago
  You could just run US-style appliance circuits to your kitchen, etc. Those are sometimes three conductor and other times four conductor. However, I doubt it'd pass inspection if they were easily accessible from the counter-top. If you're going to flout building codes anyway, it'd probably be easier/more practical to just run circuits with foreign outlets instead. Also, it might be easier to find appropriate GFCI breakers.
  - btbuilder 5y ago
    Use 6-15R or 6-20R. I think it would pass inspection because most safety requirements around gfci and afci don’t apply to 240V circuits
    - coryrc 5y ago
      They do now, but only when accessible by a person. Even car charging station outlets do (even though every car charging station has gfci built in...)
      - btbuilder 5y ago
        Ah looks like this was a change in 2017. With any outlet there’s no guarantee what will end up plugged in so it’s logical to require it even if the purpose is an EV charger. Thanks!
  - thedougd 5y ago
    EU is on 50hz AC, where as the US is on 60hz. It would work fine for purely resistive appliances, and possibly devices with switching mode power supplies, but some devices would be unhappy plugging in to the wrong frequency at 220V. I'm not sure about the phase alignment but that may be an issue as well. US is split phase, but Europe has 220 on a single conductor?
    - xxs 5y ago
      it's 230 (+-10%) nominal not 220. At my house it's around 235. It's 230v phase/live to neutral and 400V between live wires in 3phase. Nowadays 3-phase (120degree between each) is a commodity.
- pkulak 5y ago
  I kinda like that all but a couple outlets in my house can't kill me. Also, I boil my water on an induction stove plugged into 50 amps at 220 volts. I'm not waiting around, to put it mildly.
  - baq 5y ago
    30A at 400V is how we roll in the EU.
    - orra 5y ago
      Wow. A typical induction hob in the UK is 32A at 230V. 230V is of course the nominal voltage of a single phase, although in practice in the UK the voltage is closer to 240V. That's only 7.35kW of power. Do you have significantly more powerful cookers?
      - kuschku 5y ago
        400V is only used for stoves or instant water heaters, but e.g. our stove uses 11kW actually. If you don’t have these amounts of energy available, the temperature your instant water heater can reach or the speed with which you can cook obviously suffers (which I suspect is one of the reasons why americans prefer gas stoves so much).
        xxs 5y ago
        the 3phase is used for motors - a lot more efficient (and the better power factor) than the single phase ones.
        kuschku 5y ago
        For industrial applications definitely, but at home there's few people who power motors with triphase or five phase power.
      - baq 5y ago
        these are 3-phase stoves, they require a certified electrician to install, because they don't have plugs and there's no wall socket - just a place into which you can easily connect cables.
- AnssiH 5y ago
  > The US grid (the last-mile bits anyway) isn't 110 volts, it's 220. It's just our houses that are wired for (mostly) 110 V. Similarly, in most of continental Europe phase-to-phase is 400V but most outlets are 230V. E.g. in my apartment only the stove has a 400V three-phase (4-wire) connection.
  - xxs 5y ago
    but 3phase (120degrees) is a lot better for powering motors than the 2 phase one in the US
    - jessaustin 5y ago
      3-phase is available in USA, but it's typically not provided to residences.
      - xxs 5y ago
        of course, the heavy motors/industrial equipment loves 3 phase AC. Higher voltages allow lower losses in the conductors, hence less copper needed everywhere incl. small motors as the current us lower through and through.
tigershark 5y ago
No, it’s absolutely not. They consume a lot of power on average as far as I remember. They have just more transmissions loss at a lower voltage and I guess that it would be a pain to use a normal induction cooktop with 9-10KW at 110V.
CamperBob2 5y ago
Power is power. To the extent 110V is slower to boil water, it's a reflection of either inadequate power delivery capacity due to the higher currents required, or wasted heat in places other than the kettle. Either way, heat gets lost over time. You're almost always better off with higher voltage and less current, when given a choice. An obvious exception being when you get shocked. :-P Or when corona losses come into the picture.

seanw444 5y ago

Wasn't there a relevant Tom Scott video on the subject?

moreati 5y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Jx_bJgIFhI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Jx_bJgIFhI about pumped hydro at Dinorwig Power Station

nr2x 5y ago

Yes, and some places world cup viewership can take down the grid!

chemengds 5y ago

Whilst kettles are used as the unit of measurement the main driver of power consumption spikes during those breaks was electric pump for toilet cisterns.