Resistive losses are related to current (I^2 R), so you need thicker wires to deliver the same power at a lower voltage. I guess it was decided that it wasn't worth the expense.
Sure, obviously. But you'd expect power requirements to be more or less the same, and the ideal wire diameter to be dependent on voltage. But instead what happened is that the wire diameter is more or less constant, and Europe just uses more powerful electrical devices.
> Europe just uses more powerful electrical devices
Aside from kettles? I guess maybe some people have electric heaters? What else pulls enough power that the extra voltage will matter? Vacuums maybe, but no, those are limited to 1600W.
- Irons are commonly 2000-3200W (3200W is 14.5A at 220V)
- Portable Induction Stovetops are 3000W
- Deep Fryers are 2000-3000W
- Hair Dryers are 2000-2500W
And of course some things are connected via 3-phase 400V (3 220V phases, because of the 120° phase offset that's 400V between any two phases)
- actual oven + stovetop combinations, about 7000W for the stovetop, plus 1000W for the oven
- many tankless water heaters, 5000W-24000W seems common
The most impactful in day-to-day use are probably kettles and hair dryers, but with stovetops and water heaters there's probably a big difference in the prevalence in gas vs electrical, and tankless vs boiler simply due to wiring.
That's a good list, thanks. I'd be interested to know what the experience is like between a 120V hair dryer and a 240V model. I don't have enough hair to worry about such things, but my wife does, and it seems like her hair dryer gets hot enough that she usually turns it down a bit anyway.
The 'industrial' level appliances are probably less of an issue, because the wiring run is limited and you can customize it however you need to. I could go down and buy a 36kW electric tankless water heater today and wire it up without any difficulty. Though it would probably be worth upgrading my 200A panel in that case.
Ranges sound like they're probably pretty similar. Typical modern electric ranges in the US are about 10kW.
Three phases would be handy for reducing the cost of wiring, though. Cost me $1500 USD just for the wire when I ran four new circuits last year. Couple of them were 50A, which is partly why it was so expensive, but mostly it's just that copper is $$$. Any bigger than 60A and I'd switch to aluminum.
I don't have first-hand experience with the difference in hair dryers either, but I imagine it's mostly air velocity? With more power you can turn more air scalding hot, meaning you can offer higher fan speeds without compromising temperature.
