A Safer System than having a Service Line fused at 800amp in your house!

[kai]

Hong Kong Distribution Pillar

• kai
• 5 Feb 2015
• 1

The UK should adopt the system they use in China nowadays, whereby the street mains are terminated in a Distribution Cabinet, containing banks of 100amp service fuses in three rows, one per phase. From this cabinet run the customer service cables, which are of course fused at 100 amps, not the 800 amps we have in the UK, that run to each house in the street, into a dedicated meter box containing a Power Comany Isolator switch - then the Meter - and a Customer Isolator switch, and finally the Consumer Unit, probably a traditional Wylex Standard, but likely to be a din rail box variety in the newest houses.
A much safer system perhaps - the whole service cable being fused at 100 amps.

 

[stillp]

Hard to imagine China being held up as an example of electrical safety!

 

[skenk]

Not really, try reading the post above yours

 

[stillp]

Not really, try reading the post above yours

I did. And I've worked there.

 

[PBC_1966]

Sounds like a neat idea, but better hope the 100A fuses they use are not made in the same places as some of the "fuses" they export!

 

[stillp]

And that the "Wylex standard" is really that, and not a copy.

 

[kai]

Note - I took that photo myself, on my Holidays back in 2008. when I saw a team of engineers replacing the service lines to a row of shop units in Hong Kong, China.

 

[OwainDIYer]

Hong Kong Distribution Pillar

• kai
• 5 Feb 2015
• 1

The UK should adopt the system they use in China nowadays, whereby the street mains are terminated in a Distribution Cabinet, containing banks of 100amp service fuses in three rows, one per phase. From this cabinet run the customer service cables, which are of course fused at 100 amps, not the 800 amps we have in the UK,...
A much safer system perhaps - the whole service cable being fused at 100 amps.

Not any safer, as a 100 amp fuse does not provide any protection against shock, and most of the cutouts in Britain are still old enough to have been made of proper solid brass instead of the soft crap that's used for terminals in modern stuff imported from China.

The only advantage to the Chinese system is being able to cut off non-payers outside the house.

 

[kai]

HONGKONG_POWER_DISTRIBUTION_BOX

• kai
• 1 Jan 2016

HONGKONG_POWER_DISTRIBUTION_BOX

This example is made by Schneider in the United Kingdom and imported to Hong Kong, China.
It is common to see imported British made switchgear there. Even the 3 phases are labelled Phase-A, Phase-B, and Phase-C inside it.
I personally feel safer if there was no length of cable in my house, under the floorboards, "protected" by just an 800 amp fuse at the sub-station.
Maybe having the Entire Run of my service line under the protection of a BS88 -100 amp fuse is safer after all??

 

[JohnW2]

I personally feel safer if there was no length of cable in my house, under the floorboards, "protected" by just an 800 amp fuse at the sub-station.

In the great majority of UK homes, little, if any, of that cable (upstream of the local cutout fuse) is actually within the building. Other than when someone is 'playing' with the supply side of a UK cutout (usually during cutout changes), virtually all faults in the supply cable would be external to the property.

Whilst in some senses it is an 'ideal', the system you describe is obviously very 'inefficient' (costly) in infrastructure terms, given that the "800A" (or whatever) fuse in a UK system would normally serve dozens of consumers via a single, branching, cable. As has been said, one of the few operational advantages of the 'Chinese System' is the ability of the supplier to easily disconnect a supply from outside of the property.

What you say is a bit like suggesting that you would feel more comfortable if, say, a 10W LED (about 0.04A) was fed by a dedicated circuit/cable protected by, say, a 0.1A OPD at the CU, rather than the usual system of having it sharing with many other loads a cable protected by a 6A OPD at the CU - or similarly with the supply to a phone charger (again, perhaps around 0.04A), currently protected by a 32A (or maybe 20A) OPD at the CU.

Kind Regards, John

 

[kai]

You were right, I do have my phone charger plugged into a 13a fused 3way adaptor, before being plugged into the wall outlet.
This also has the benefit of being able to easily see the USB connector, to attach the charging cord, instead of having it pointing downwards towards the floor.

 

[winston1]

Note - I took that photo myself, on my Holidays back in 2008. when I saw a team of engineers replacing the service lines to a row of shop units in Hong Kong, China.

Although Hong Kong is now technically part of China just about every standard there is different (better) than mainland China. Hong Kong electrics are generally based on UK electrics, they use BS1363 plugs. Mainland use a mixture of 3pin crowsfoot (Australian style) and 2 pin flat (US style) plugs. HK uses UK style telephone plugs, the mainland uses US style, HK drives on the left, mainland on the right. HK has much tighter emission controls and complains bitterly about people importing tankfuls of mainland (inferior) diesel. I could go on but suffice to say that any electrics you saw installed in HK is likely to be far better than anything on the mainland.

 

[stillp]

I was just going to post something similar Winston! HK has fairly good electrics, but you should see some of the installations in Guanzhou or Wuhan, or even in the suburbs of Beijing! They're rapidly improving, but it'll take a long time to upgrade throughout the country.

 

[kai]

That's a benefit of Hong Kong, as I don't have to faff around with mains travel adaptors, I simply plug in my phone charger straight into their sockets, and the voltage is correct too.
Lightens my luggage with one less essential item to carry!!

 

[Simon35]

I was just going to post something similar Winston! HK has fairly good electrics, but you should see some of the installations in Guanzhou or Wuhan, or even in the suburbs of Beijing! They're rapidly improving, but it'll take a long time to upgrade throughout the country.

What were you working on in Wuhan and Guangzhou? I've worked in both cities myself.