> (For us, that process cost about 3 years and $10K. They ran a wire 6 feet from an existing transformer to a pole we had to install ourselves).

Must have been a while ago because in 2021 they charged me $0 (not a typo) to go from 100A to 200A. It took just a month or so to arrange.

It's really amazing how people can talk about 200 amps as if it's nothing. We have a household installation of 40 amps (220) and last year there were months that cost 400 euros per month on electricity, and we are not heavy electricity users (we have no electric cloth dryer but have a small robot mower tho)

It is almost like talking about 400HP cars/suvs, my 3 cylinder car is doing just fine at 84 kW max.

Am I being pedantic?

* * *

Maybe this is a bit of a tangent but... shouldn't the world as a whole not be thinking about how to consume less in stead of obsessing with how to do the clean energy transition, without changing our habits a bit?

If you think about it, there is still plenty of room for optimizing our energy consumption.

The trend seems to be, replace the gasoline car not with a more fuel efficient one but rather with a car weighing almost double because it has to drag along a huge battery. Then replace all copper wires with double the section (copper mining, plastic production, tearing open perfect roads, ...)

Some ideas, not very far fetched I would say, combine a few of these will get us a long way:

Car pooling.

Electric bicycles.

Insulate your house better?

Taking turns with neighbours to do grocery shopping or bringing kids to school.

Try to repair stuff in stead of bying new.

Drying clothes with renewable wind energy. (a hanging rack)

> Car pooling.

> Electric bicycles

> Insulate your house better?

> Taking turns with neighbours to do grocery shopping or bringing kids to school.

> Try to repair stuff in stead of bying new.

> Drying clothes with renewable wind energy. (a hanging rack)

People do these things anyways with the right incentives, just to save time and money.

But we still need to get off of fossil fuels for transportation and electricity generation if we want to avoid the worst climate change scenarios.

The reality is that people really value convenience, and we have to find sustainable ways of delivering that. That might mean a great electric bus system, EVs, community thrift exchanges, etc

I agree, but it needs to be a combination of change of infrastructure and people's habits. After all it is just culture and culture evolves,so let it evolve in the right direction. 200 amps to every household seems not to be the right direction.

As behind-the-meter demand management technology advances, and behind the meter storage becomes more affordable, we will be able to increasingly support high power use cases without needing 200A service drops at all. This is where we will end up: sipping power through a straw and storing it for short bursts of high-power usage.

> Car pooling. I work from home and hate riding/coordinating with others so I’ll alway just go on my own.

> Electric bicycles

I only ride bicycles for exercise or as an activity but never to go somewhere. I’m no longer 12.

> Insulate your house better?

If the government wants to use my tax dollars for this instead of SNAP/TANF then I’m all for them paying for it but it’s not going to be me paying.

> Taking turns with neighbours to do grocery shopping or bringing kids to school.

See point #1

> Try to repair stuff in stead of bying new.

I do this where possible because I’m cheap but I doubt it is any kind of significant savings of energy.

> Drying clothes with renewable wind energy. (a hanging rack)

Now I’ve got clean clothes covered in dust and pollen. Thanks.

I understand your points. I'm sure those are valid for you. I'm thinking more about the whole picture. You say you work from home, that's already big influence.

My point in this discussion thread is, i saw 200 Amps at 240 V per household being mentioned, i want to show this should not be the norm or trend. Imo this way of thinking is not leading to an efficient system.

If you have an electric car, you probably don't need to charge it most of the times at the highest current. And when you do, you won't turn on all electric devices with high amperage.

The other examples are just examples, not everyone needs to apply them all. I advocate for the culture shift, the more-is-not-better mentality. This needs to go hand in hand with cleaner technologies and government policies.

You're talking in Euros... we have 230V power, while Americans and a few other holdouts still use 110V. The problem is, the lower the voltage the more current you need - an 1 kW vacuum draws 9 amps in the US, but 4.5 in Europe.

The unit of billing - kW/h - however remains the same.

America is 120v now, I believe - and many houses have a centre-tapped neutral supply [1] which means they actually can have 240v outlets in garages, workshops, utility rooms (etc) for high power devices.

[1] https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/487836/how-d...

So this is different from a 3 phase system (N L1 L2 L3) with 120 degrees shift between the lines? It is instead basically a 2 phase system N L1 L2 with a 180 degree phase shift between L1 and L2?

I was already confused with the 240 being mentioned somewhere in this thread... it becomes a bit clearer now.

Not an electrician, but yes (I think).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-phase_electric_power

Most US residential housing is fed off a 240V center tapped transformer. Center tap is connected to ground and neutral at the breaker panel. That gives you two 120V phases to neutral. And 240V from phase to phase.

In the breaker panels the phase alternates as you go down the rows of breakers. So you can install a dual breaker for 240V. Typically only large appliances like stoves, water heater, driers, and air conditioners are 240V. Everything else is 120V.

I heartily recommend a three phase induction stove. 400V of cooking power (mine is rated at something like 8kW…?). Carbon steel pans get ready in seconds.

This sounds plausible but is subtly incorrect: the US uses split phase power and 100A means 100A on each of the two legs (+/-120V). So if you balance the legs correctly, you can get 240V*100A on 100A service. This is important for example for car charging where both legs are used and balanced.

It depends a lot on your existing service. For many homes the wire is already rated for 200A, and you just need a new main panel. In those cases the utility charges you $0. On the other end of the spectrum, some homes have buried power lines where they need to dig up the street and driveway to run a new higher-rated cable to your home, and I've heard of those costing upwards of $50K.

In my case I needed a new wire drop, but it's still didn't cost me anything. The panel upgrade was very pricey though.

It's different depending on the line that runs to your home and the transformer serving your street. If the line to your home has enough diameter to carry 200A and the transformer and the main line have enough spare capacity, all it needs is to exchange the main fuses/circuit breakers on the utility side. Most new constructions these days are severely overbuilt to accomodate the rise in electric car chargers.

For older constructions however, it can be more involved - the line from the main line to your home might need an upgrade, the main line might need an upgrade or in the worst case the transformer might need an upgrade. The further up in the grid you go, the more expensive it gets for the utility - and some measures might even require significant work involving construction permits.

In our situation, the issue was that the service had been disconnected, and we needed to move the meter about 20 feet (no obstructions, no buried lines).