Quote:
Originally Posted by cfg83
I thought the big reason DC lost was because of transmission line losses :
If you generate the electricity locally, i.e. your roof, then DC is fine. The problem, of course, is we live in an AC world, so you need the DC-to-AC inverter to "work with" the legacy infrastructure.
CarloSW2
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The reason AC won out over DC was because the DC transformer hadn't been invented back in Thomas Edison's day, and he had no way to step up DC voltages the way that Westinghouse could with his AC power for long distance transmission. When the voltage goes up, then the current goes down, and you want a as low a current as possible to avoid resistance losses when sending electricity a long way down a wire. By the time that the DC transformer was invented in the 1960's, AC transmission had long been the dominant technology. But now that we have DC transformers that can step up the voltages needed for long distance transmission, DC has become the most efficient way to transmit electrical power long distance since it isn't forming and collapsing an Electro-Magnetic Field 120X a sec (@60HZ). This EMF induces electical currents in any nearby metal objects. Just try grabbing onto a unpowered wire that runs for several hundred feet parallel next to a high tension line, I had fun with induced currents when stringing electric fence wire in my field next to a high tension power line. You would think the fence had already been connected to a weak charger. This stray EMF can also light up a fluorescent tube carried under the power line. All of this represents line losses from AC that don't occur with DC.