I'm going to make you put on your thinking caps now. Suppose you were setting out to design an electrical system from scratch.
You have a completely free hand. You're not tied to using any type of connectors for compatibility, or using certain voltages because of existing equipment.
Yes, I know that's not very practical with the millions of installations already in use, but just pretend you were given the job of devising distribution systems for the first permanent Martian colony or something..!!!
What systems would you use for residential services? 3-wire at about the current 120/240V level? Would you prefer that even small appliances run on a higher voltage and maybe adopt a 3-wire 200/400 to 250/500 system so that each house only needed a 2-wire service for 200-250 volts?
If you were sticking with lower voltage, how about 3-ph 120/208 for residential? Would you rather see a British-type system where distribution is 3-ph 240/415V and houses just get one phase? Would you adopt some other standard supply voltage entirely: 175V? 300V? 2 What about commercial supplies?
Frequency: The current 50 or 60Hz standards or something different? Why? (I can't imagine anyone suggesting going back to a DC system, but if you want to, let's hear a good reason!)
Grounding arrangements: Would you like to stay with the current American system, or adopt something different? How about a separate ground wire back to the xfmr and the neutral grounded only at the xfmr? Or perhaps some other arrangement.
You get the idea. Any & all suggestions for devising the ideal system.
