Someone who worked with ESB (Ireland's main PoCo) was telling me that ESB and NIE (Northern Ireland Electricity) either discussed harmonising the domestic supply voltage at 230V 50Hz or actually did harmonise it quite a long time before the rest of Europe decided to go that route.

Lyledunn: do you have any idea if this is true?

It's definitely possible that the ESB began to actually install 230V Xformers quite a few years ago to give more flexibility as it would mean UK and European appliences would generally be happy if plugged in in the Republic of Ireland. It would have made a lot of economic sense, particularly in the days before the Euro when the Republic of Ireland's currency IR£ was tied to UK£ (sterling) etc.. and lots of UK approved appliences (rated 240V) were on the market alongside European ones (rated 220V)

I know I've definitely seen some 1980s ESB meters rated at 230V here.

Apparently North-South compatability also drove the Irish decision to completely drop schuko and adopt BS1363 officially as it would have been ridiculous to have 2 incompatable plug/socket systems on the same island. There were a lot of technical arguments in favour of schuko, particularly before BS1363 shielded pins were introduced

As a matter of interest we did some quick voltage checks and got these readings between 222V and 234V.

I know that older pole-mounted xformer rural supplies tend to give dead on 220V although that's all changing to 230 rapidly as there is a pretty massive programme to upgrade the rural networks to 20kV (from 10kV) meaning the old pole mounted cans are all being replaced with new ones.

It also gives the ESB a chance to upgrade some of the old 52A supplies to be capable of supplying 80A-100A

I know the difference between 220 and 240V supplies isn't a huge deal but for some sensitive equipment it can cause problems.


[This message has been edited by djk (edited 12-30-2003).]