I have touched on this subject before: Electrification of developing countries.

I was thinking of developing some ulta-cheap concept to distribute power. Yes, I know I'm insane, naive and all those things. [Linked Image]

The SWER (Single Wire Earth Return) system has been debated before in the General area.

I was thinking of pushing this concept to the extreme: 40 kV to earth instead of 12.7 or 19.1kV

My idea is that it doesn't matter if the line above your head is 10kV or 40kV. If you touch it, you die anyway.

Using this insane voltage, I don't need aluminium wires. I can used steel wires. Steel is a poor conductor, R = 0.16 ohm m/mm2, but the high voltage offsets that. The good thing about a steel wire is that you can string it for longer distances than aluminium, 250 m or more between the poles. Much of the cost is in the poles.

Now, I only need a very small transformer as the each household only use a few hundred watts of power. Say a 10 kVA transformer. At 240V this corresponds to 40A or 20A per leg at 2 x 240V.

As meters are expensive, let's make the service very small and drop the meter. A one amp service seems like a good choice: Just over 200W per household.

I started calculating the voltage drop the wire from the transformer to the user. If you use 0.5 mm2 Cu wires and allow a voltage drop of about 10 V you get a maximum distance of about 150 m. That means it should be possible to cover a village with a single transformer in the middle.

Ideas and suggestions, please.