ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades International Voltages

Non-standard voltage can also be be found on military bases, isolated hotels and quite possibly a few other businesses. (Oil fields and mines comes to mind as possible examples. Does anyone have any experience?)
Hotels sometimes offer both 110 and 220V for the guests' convenience.

Here is a reference for several countries:
http://www.copper.org.sg/publications/spotlight/v1_i1_2qtr_2003/story2.html

If 230/460V for the Phillipines looks odd, there is an explanation: Influenced by American practice (and using the US NEC), center tapped single phase is common.

Looking specifically at Vietnam:
http://www.copper.org.sg/publications/spotlight/v1_i1_2qtr_2003/1_coverstory2.html

and
http://www.copper.org.sg/publications/spotlight/v1_i1_2qtr_2003/story5.html

I find this interesting from a historical perspective as it shows the electrical systems of the colonial powers frozen in time: 110V was used long ago in France/Europe, both AC and DC. The Soviet Union had 127 volts until it converted to 220V sometime in the 1960's.

P.S. I have just paid for space at a real web server and will move my often non-working site there in a few weeks.

Quote from the above site: "It was noted that Vietnam’s fatality rate due to electric shock was ten times that of Malaysia (which in turn was ten times that of UK). The statistic underscored the potential of improvement in the electrical safety standards in Vietnam and the urgency of the issue of electrical code transition."

That leaves some room for improvement...

[This message has been edited by C-H (edited 06-09-2004).]

In general here's how it goes:

For LV it's relatively simple

Europe is extremely well harmonised.

*ALL* of Europe uses 230V 50Hz single phase and 400V 50Hz 3 phase.

With the exceptions of the UK, Ireland, Cyprus, Malta (BS1363), Italy, Denmark and Switzerland the CEE 7/7 grounded connector is effectively the universal standard. This fits 2 types of outlet: The more common German style with side-scraping ground contacts and the French style with a protruding ground pin (both outlets are recessed)) The 2.5A 2-pin flat ungrounded "Europlug" is universally acceptable in all countries and can be used in the BS1363 countries by means of a permanently fitted fused adaptor.

It can be safely presumed that any country that used 220-240V single phase 380-415V 3 phase at 50Hz will follow the Cenelec guidelines and move to 230V.

230V specified appliences will work happily in ALL European countries and in any other country using between 220 and 240V 50Hz.

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Countries using 110-125V 60Hz generally follow trends in the USA.

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Exceptions:

Japan uses 100V 60Hz and 50Hz depending on which side of the country you are on! and some unusual 3-phase voltages.

Appliences specified for Japan must be 100V 50-60Hz.

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Several countries continue to use the now long obsolete 110V and 127V 50Hz European systems.

However, in general you'll find information about these systems hard to come by and it's quite likely that they actually use 220-230V with 2-hots in many instances.

US appliences, particularly older products, may not be very happy on 127V 50Hz!!

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