Why doesn Australia standardise their mains voltage with the rest of the world?
I was asked this once when someone read where I had stated that Australia is the only country left in the world which still has 240 volts as its nominal mains supply voltage. There are actually several nominal supply voltages around the world. Europe, New Zealand and most of the Pacific islands run on 220 volts, the US and Canada run on 110 volts and Japan and some other Asian countries run on 100 volts. Having said that, Australia is a big country with a very small population and transmitting electricity at a lower voltage would be more expensive due to the fact that the wires would have to be bigger to allow the extra current flows and to allow for the electrical losses of transmitting over such long distances at a lower voltage. Then there is the refit of just about every fluorescent light fitting in the country because running current ones at a lower voltage would cause them to overheat. Australia has the safest electrical supply system in the world despite the fact that contact wi
