ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades Down Under Installations

Now you've lost me. Are you referring to voltage drop from transformer to house?

Why would the voltage drop % be different for a 400V service? Is this to take into account that there is balance of load and hence no voltage drop in the neutral?

[This message has been edited by C-H (edited 10-05-2002).]

Hi Trumpy
I notice that Australia has ammended it's nominal voltage to 230/400V from 240/415V.
Do you know if they are actually adjusting the voltages lower, or is it just a paper exercise in harmonization like the UK?
Our nominal voltage changed from 240/415 +/-6% to 230/400 +10% -6%, which has meant that in reality our voltages are the same as they always were. Only difference is the voltage has to be as low as 216V before you can complain to the power co., & I have never seen it that low at the supply terminals.
Also are Australia & NZ intending to change the colours of fixed wiring from the current: red, white & blue as phases, black as neutral & G/Y as earth?
I am told that we in the UK are going to have to adopt the new Euro code of: brown, black & grey as phases, blue as neutral, g/y as earth, by 2006.
However I have not seen any official mention of this in BS7671 yet.

David

That raises a query: Hutch told us some time ago that South Africa stuck with white as B-phase instead of changing to yellow like the U.K. Did Australia and/or N.Z. also stick with white?

I haven't heard about the proposed mandatory change for fixed cables here, but when I was in Ireland (Republic) in 1998 I noticed a couple of installations where the meter tails had been changed to brown and blue. I don't know whether they've adopted the Euro-colors right across the board as yet though. I've seen references that Ireland has also started to use the Schuko plug, although I've not been able to confirm it.

*Note for non-U.K. readers:
BS7671 = IEE Wiring Regulations.



[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 10-06-2002).]

In Italy due to long 220V runs in rural areas the Voltage at houses is sometimes as low as 190V. Pretty low, compared to the nominal 220V back when I got these readings. My tape recorder complained a little bit!

I think some parts of Spain are also notorious for very poor regulation and large voltage drops during periods of heavy demand. I've seen people quote 180 to 190V as not uncommon at times.

At that level in England, we'd be calling the PoCo to complain!

Welcome David,
Just to throw a spanner in the works,guys, we used the colours of Red,Yellow,Blue, in all of our 4core cables, until a short time ago, where we started using Red,White, Blue, to conform to international convention, so I am told.
However, our Earth conductors in these same
cables have remained the same,no Green stripe.

So, the U.K. changed B-phase from white to yellow over 35 years ago, and N.Z. has just recently changed the opposite way! Don't you just love standards?!

Er, shouldn't that be no yellow stripe?

Yeah, thanks Paul,cannot concentrate at the moment, very short of sleep,got a huge wiring contract on.

To clean up all of the confusion about our system voltages over here, I am currently reading the new AS/NZS 3000:2002 Standard for Electrical Installation, it states that all voltage drops within an installation (anywhere in the installation)shall not deviate any more than +/-6% of the nominal supply voltage, regardless of whether it is single or three phase supplied.
With regard to the voltage in Australia, I
think that they have always used the 240/415V system over there,not too sure.
New Zealand is slowly being "harmonised" with Australia, with respect to Regulations and so forth, our registration requirements are now the same,because of a lot of NZ sparkies,going over there to work.