110 V or 220 V: standards that are used in Brazil
Publicado em 2 de September de 2020
Travelers are used to the fact that when you are traveling across Brazil, it’s necessary to check the voltage to avoid damage to the equipments they are using. The voltage difference occurs due the fact that, when the electrical network was built, in the beginning of last century, it was not defined a standard voltage. That definition was a responsability of the companies that were building and administrating the installations. This explains the fact that some parts of the country are using 110 V standard to receive electricity while other ones use 220V.
It’s importante to notice that these numbers weren’t chose randomly: safety is the reason why the voltage of the public distribution networks was limited. According to Jorge Luiz do Nascimento that works as a professor in the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, “old studies and practical observations show that voltage that are close to 500V are safe to common use when all the security measures are taken. With that, voltage of 127V, 220V and 380V were chosen for residential use while the industry uses 440V or more than that”. With the enlargement of the network was impracticable to change the installation to have the same standard all around the country. It’s important to notice though that when you’re buying a new equipment, even if the standard in your house is 220V or 110V, there’s no difference in the energy consumption or the equipment performance.
Something that also brings some doubts is the fact that some tags shows voltage 127 V while other ones show 110V. This is something that changed during time and that is related to transformers modernization. Michele Rodrigues works as a professor in Fundação Educacional Inaciana and mentions that “to feed houses, trading and industry the voltage usually is reduced. We use the transformers for that”. Therefore, the tipe of construction to the transformer determines if the installation is going to be of 110 V – usually used for older transformers — or 127 V. According to the kind of the network, we can find small variations between 115 V or 120 V. Interesting, right?
SOURCE:
UOL. 110V ou 220V: Afinal, por que temos dois padrões no Brasil? Disponível em: UOL