Er, 15A 3Phase as the mains??? What Voltage is it again??? 230/400V???
Yep. Or quite likely 220/380 in actuality if they haven't physically adjusted the transformers for the new official 230V standard yet.
30A 230V mains??? Single Phase correct????
There used to be 30A (240V single-phase) supplies in Britain. I haven't seen one for a very long time, but I suppose there might still be a few around. I still see 40A services from time to time, although they're getting rarer.
100A is now pretty much the norm for new installations, but there are still a huge number of 60A services in use.
The lower-rated services aren't really a problem until people start wanting to add things like instantaneous electric showers (9 to 10kW) or such like. Remember that we have almost no air-conditioning loads in domestic systems here.
A house using gas heating, and maybe a gas stove could quite easily get by on an old 40A service. Allowing for diversity, the total loading probably nevers gets anywhere near that.
The problem I see with something like the French 15A 3-ph system is not the total power available but the horrendous juggling act you'd have to do with single-phase loads when you can draw barely more than 3kW per phase.
In my French house I pay a base price depending on the size of amperage of the meter, for my 6 kW /30A adjusted meter it
is ? 4,33 per month plus taxes which isn't much, but the price for a supply comparable to the German standard would be enormous. On the other hand kWh is at ? 0,0765, or less than the half of the German price.
I remember when I first looked at the EDF tariffs a few years ago. As you and Alan have said, they base the fixed standing charge on the service capacity and the price goes up very rapidly for anything above a few kW.
In Britain, you pay no extra standing charge for a 100A supply than you would for a 40 or 60A service. In fact my PoCo just recently scrapped the standing charge completely.
[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 01-15-2006).]