I saw a tweet recently that intrigued me:
http://twitter.com/#!/yoz/status/191445005414567937
The voltage of mains electricity varies from country to country: the majority of countries use between 200 and 240 volts, but a small minority (most notably the US, Canada and Japan) use between 100 and 127 volts.
Countries using 100-127 volts are shown in red; countries using 200-240 volts are shown in blue. Countries with a mixture of the two systems are shown in purple.
The voltage* of an electrical supply is what pushes electrons around in a circuit. The higher the voltage, the faster the electrons move and thus the higher the current (one amp is equivalent to about six billion billion electrons flowing past a point per second). With a low voltage the rate of transfer of electrical energy is therefore much slower. In the UK, with a mains voltage of 230 V and a limit of 13 A per socket the maximum possible power to one appliance is 2990 watts (2990 joules per second). In the USA, with a mains voltage of 120 V and a limit of 15 A per outlet the maximum possible power is reduced to only 1800 watts, which is why in the US many large appliances (e.g. washing machines, tumble dryers) have to be connected to a separate high-voltage circuit.
To raise the temperature of one litre of water from 15°C to boiling at 100°C requires a little bit over 355 kilojoules of energy. An “average” kettle in the UK runs at about 2800 W and in the US at about 1500 W; if we assume that both kettles are 100% efficient† than a UK kettle supplying 2800 joules per second will take 127 seconds to boil and a US kettle supplying 1500 J/s will take 237 seconds, more than a minute and a half longer. This is such a problem that many households in the US still use an old-fashioned stove-top kettle.
* As a physicist I would normally use the term “potential difference” in place of “voltage” but voltage is better understood by the general public. Looks like the engineers (who prefer “voltage”) won that battle.
† As electric kettles actually use the joule heating effect that is responsible for most of the energy wasted in other electrical devices this isn’t a terribly unfair assumption.
That’s scratched an itch I didn’t know I had. Just last night I noticed a character on Homeland put an old-fashioned kettle on the gas stove in their sleek modern kitchen and mentally filed it away as a clue to something tea-related that might be picked up later. Thank you!
It might be worth mentioning altitude as well. In Johannesburg, water boils at 98°C (208°F) rather than the sea-level 100°C (212°F). I believe water boils at 88°C (190°F) in La Rinconada, Peru which is 5100 metres (16728′) above sea level according to Wikipedia.
In countries like the US where more current is needed per Watt, I guess the wire conductors must be thicker and more expensive (copper is pricey these days!) than they would be elsewhere where voltage is higher. The upside for people in the US might be that you have a better chance of getting away alive from an electric shock.
Yes. For two devices, one in the US and one elsewhere with 230 V supply the US device would require more current and thicker connectors. It would certainly be interesting to look at rates of death due to electrocution in US v 230 V supply countries.
I’m not sure about death rates, but on 240V we have a very smart feature in Australia… individual on/off switches for each plug. I’m moving back to the US after 12 years here and cannot think of a day without my electric kettle… I guess I’ll just have to wait a bit longer for that boil.
We have the same system in the UK. I find it really weird that the US doesn’t have individual on/off switches.
I thought about this problem after visiting the UK for the first time 10 years ago. I was so addicted to the fast boil, I wondered if a US electrician would be able to wire up a UK plug so that we could use your kettles? Would that be possible?
No. The problem is with the electricity supply, not the plug.
There’s a saying in the electrical engineering community: Volts jolts, but mills (milliamps) kills. That is, a high voltage will shock you (static shocks when you rub your feet over carpet tend to be a few thousand volts), but what will kill you is a high current. For two equal-power appliances, the higher voltage, lower current form used in Europe is probably marginally safer (electrical power is the voltage multiplied by the current).
More importantly, you CAN run a European kettle off a North American mains line with some effort. The NA mains system uses a split-phase scheme, with two live wires each at 120 V but 180 degrees out of phase, and then a neutral lead at 0 V. You can rewire things to use the two live wires instead of live and neutral, allowing you to produce a 240 V socket. Electric cookers, boilers and other high power devices are usually connected this way as standard – I believe this is how the high voltage circuit mentioned in the article is achieved, leaving the neutral to serve as ground.
Since Europe uses a 230 V three-phase scheme (and a different frequency), this is almost certainly an inadvisable hack for most appliances, but a kettle circuit is sufficiently simple and robust that it is safe provided you use a suitably fused plug.
a quick google found this: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Can_you_plug_a_230V_50Hz_appliance_into_a_240V_60Hz_outlet
as Martinel writes, it is essential that you include a 13 A fuse somewhere along the kettle lead as the house circuit breakers will be for much higher current. Since the current draw is controlled by the resistive load of the appliance itself, it should function perfectly unless the grid supply has a power surge.
* As an engineer I have to point out that the speed of electrons in a circuit (close to the speed of light) are independent of voltage. Increased voltage increases the number of electrons not the speed. For a given heating element that added number of electrons would “speed up” the thermal vibrations of your kettle heating element (it gets hotter) which in turn speeds up the time you have a cup of tea in your hand. It is more likely though that the 220v heating element is twice as long (or wide or high) and there is no speeding up of the thermal vibration at all, there is just more surface area being used to transfer the thermal energy to the water (which speeds up it’s thermal vibration which us humans measure as Ouch! That’s Hot!)
As a physicist, I have to point out that electrons travel in a circuit at nowhere even close to the speed of light. Drift velocity is usually of the order of a millimetre per second. Increasing voltage increases current, and increases the amount of energy possessed by each charge. I’m not really sure what the point you’re getting at is.
The point I was making was that your statement “The higher the voltage, the faster the electrons move” is inaccurate. Yes, the drift velocity is really slow but it increases with current not voltage. The speed of the electrons (Fermi speed) is dependent only on the material (copper) and that is really fast. Your statement might lead some one to believe that when they hit the circuit with a higher voltage the speed of the circuit increases. It does not, the speed of the circuit is about 50% of the speed of light and does not change. It is as you last stated, “Increasing voltage increases current, and increases the amount of energy possessed by each charge”. The problem is that your example is using similar currents (13amps @ 220v) and (15 amps @ 110v). There is no increase in current, in fact there is a decrease in current going from 110v to 220v thus you actually have a slower drift velocity.
The correct wording would be something like “The higher the voltage the faster the transfer of electrical energy (not faster electrons)
Actually, I’m pretty happy with it as it is.
At constant resistance an increase in voltage causes an increase in current and an increase in current is an increase in the rate of flow of charge (i.e. the drift velocity). I don’t care about the actual speed of the electrons within the wire, but only the speed at which they move down the wire.
Mr Reid, thank you for this detailed explanation of something I’ve known generally for many years. Could I just ask that you edit your post for grammar? “[T]hen” is not the word that immediately follows most comparative adjectives.
Thnks again!
Correction: “Thnks” should read *Thanks*. (Looks like I could do with some development of my laptop keyboard skills.) :-)
This bothers me a lot when I travel to the US. That said, when living in the US, especially on the west coast, you can easily get yourself a Zojirushi hot water dispenser and keep your water at 98º.
Before moving to the UK, I thought such a thing was completely indispensable until I noticed how fast the kettles were. A good thing too, because the hot water dispensers are hard to come by and very expensive here, plus they take up premium counter space and would probably get clogged with scale after about the second use.
Actually it could be possible to wire up a UK plug.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but technically US power is 240~V. There’s a +120V and -120V conductor coming into the house, normally they’re crossed into neutral (creating a 120V supply) but in most houses there’s a separate supply where they’re crossed onto each other to create a 240V for high powered machines (as mentioned in the article).
As one of these machines (oven) is in the Kitchen might it be possible to wire the 240V into a traditional British plug above the counter. You wouldn’t have to use a British plug but it would be pretty convenient (cheapish 240V stuff shipped from the UK and no risk of someone plugging in the wrong thing).
Thank you. Was really wondering about this…
Many, maybe most US kitchens already have 240 volts wired…it’s what the electric stove runs no and the plug is behind the stove. Should be easy for an electrician to extend the wiring from the box behind the stove and install another 240 volt outlet on the kitchen counter to run your 240 volt kettle. That’s why I’m thinking of doing when I return to the US this summer
My original UK kettle was a bit of a hack but I recently found a specialized socket that can drop into the box of most kitchen outlets (http://www.amazon.ca/dp/B000U3DXX8/ref=pe_386430_121528420_TE_dp_1). Here in Canada at least the kitchen counter top outlets are supposed to be split receptacles, so 240Vac is available between red and black. Just replace the UK plug with a NEMA 6-15P. For circuit protection you’ll be relying on the 15A circuit breaker though instead of the 13A fuse built into UK style plugs.
The EU are planning a ban on high wattage kettles after the UK holds a referendum in June on whether to leave the EU. Most of Europe will be joining the 5 minute boil club soon.
Somoby before wrote that it is safer to use electrical item in europe (240V) than in US (120v) because you need less curent to get the same power in 240V socket. This is NOT TRUE. Just imagine YOU ARE an American kettle yourself. First you plug yourself into american socket. You warm up slowly. Now plug your self to european socket and you explode. American kettle has lower resistance and resistance does not change. Higher Voltage will force though your body much more Current!!!
Fun Fact: Your house gets 220v too, and most ranges in the US run on the 220 circuit.
I got a breaker for a air conditioner, they bridge both +120v and -120v and give you 240V. I ran a cable to a double pole isolating switch (to turn BOTH wires off) and then around the house to UK 240V sockets. My Kenwood food mixer and the Vacuum cleaner worked perfectly, as did the kettle and my old 1939 radio.
I would recommend getting somebody with knowledge to install the system, I used to be an electrician, so that was ok.
The UK has the best power and plug system in the world. Period. We do not have to worry about children sticking metal utensils in plug sockets, and we have power on off. All detailed in — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEfP1OKKz_Q
Does no one else use a built-in hot water dispenser? Who has time to wait for a kettle…
Umm “The higher the voltage, the faster the electrons move and thus the higher the current” That might benefit from some clarification. At a constant power, increasing the voltage will decrease the current in direct proportion since the power is the product of the current and voltage.
1 – we don’t wait, we carry on until it has boiled.
2 – we all cannot afford to have a hot water dispenser continually using power.
The power supply isn’t constant though, that’s sort of the whole point. UK is around 2900 W, US around 1700W. Increasing the voltage will increase the current, and the drift velocity will increase (the electrons will move faster).
I don’t drink tea, but my husband does. We use a non-powered kettle on the stove and would not want an electric one even if it was able to boil water instantly. I don’t have the space for another countertop appliance, and an electric kettle seems redundant when something else does the job fine. I thought Americans were supposed to be the impatient people of the world. Apparently, not always. Anyway, we don’t stand there waiting for it to boil. We carrying on about our activities until it whistles.
Well, Canada uses the 115ish volt system and every single person I know has an electric kettle. The Ameracs don’t get off that easy.
Would it be possible to use a UK electric tea kettle in U.S. by having a secondary 220 watt plug installed in the kitchen connected to the supply line for an electric range??? Bought a hair dryer in UK one time and after I got back to the hotel, I found I had to return to buy a “plug-in” for it. I had no idea that small appliances were sold there without the plug because of the numerous electrical outlets in use there.
So, is a Keurig coffee maker taking the placeof a kettle? I use mine mainly for hot water.
Honestly, most Americans just don’t use plain, boiled water often enough to warrant having an appliance devoted solely to it. Our hot beverage of choice is coffee, and that has its own appliance. The microwave is fine for the odd tea or hot chocolate. I’m sure people who do drink tea regularly have a kettle of some sort (you can buy them anywhere), but it’s just not a necessity for a lot of us.
This whole article is kind of redundant. Aside from the issue of the the voltage and electron flow explanation, (I am an electromotive technican or in old speak a motor winder) a device that is functioning properly will only draw the rated wattage. Since the wattage is the only thing here that will directly affect the speed of the boil it is the only relevent point to discuss. Here in Australia the average kettle is rated at 1800 – 2000w, thus it would take the same amount of time to boil water here as it would in North America. Incidently our circuits are 230V 10A, protected at 15A. Giving up 2400w with an extra 600w margin. Most systems around the world are set up similarly regardless of voltage.
The assumption of 100% efficiency is fair, though a little myopic. The heating element will indeed be near 100% efficient, but that’s not the only piece in the kettle. If that heat is transferred away from the water (eg to the air around the kettle) this will require a longer boil time. A well insulated kettle could reduce (or exacerbate!) the gap in boil times between countries.
“a UK kettle supplying 2800 joules per second will take 127 seconds to boil and a US kettle supplying 1500 J/s will take 237 seconds, more than a minute and a half longer. This is such a problem that many households in the US still use an old-fashioned stove-top kettle.”
We aren’t that impatient. This is completely idiotic as stovetop kettles take 10+ minutes. You might be able to argue that we use microwaves at 90 seconds for a cup of water, but microwaves also take 10+ minutes to boil a kettle’s worth of water.
The main reason people in the U.S. don’t use electric kettles? They don’t know they exist. The second reason is that they drink coffee and have coffee makers.
People who drink tea in the U.S. and learn about electric kettles don’t go, “oh darn, I’d totally buy that, but it’ll take a whole 3 minutes”, we go “wait, that’s a thing? amazing!!” and buy one. Or in my case two, so I could have one at work.
I see a couple errors:.
1. The power grid is sinusoidal AC – no net electron movement. Electrons move one direction during one half-cycle then move back during the next half cycle. The electrons in your kettle will always be the same electrons you have now.
2. Electron drift velocity is proportional to current not voltage. One ampere will have the same drift velocity whether it’s 1 volt or 10 kV. Drift velocity is zero for an open circuit no matter the voltage.
Drift velocity = current density / (charge carrier number density * charge of the carrier).
3. Drift velocity is incomprehensibly SLOW for typical currents. 15 A flowing in a 12 AWG (2 mm) wire has a drift velocity of just 345 micrometers per second. Roughly an HOUR to move a single meter. But since this is AC the electron simply oscillates back and forth by 3 micrometers – a distance about half the size of a red blood cell.
4. As others have said we in the US don’t boil water often. When we do we do it the American way – our induction cooktop with a 4800 W element. Water boils in roughly half the time as a 2800 W kettle in the UK.
BTW, love this site. Found it a few weeks ago and working my way back through the archives one post at a time. Learn something new every day while being entertained. Brilliant!
So comparing electricity in a wire to water in a pipe, would volts be pressure and amps be volume per time?
Roger, that’s a pretty good analogy, yes.
Can I buy a kettle in America and cut off the plug and put an Australian plug on and use it? Or will it explode on me?
Thanks
No. Don’t do that.