what is 3 phase power? How does it work? How does it differ from 1 phase power that most residentials have? Why isn’t 2 phase power as popular?
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It helps to think about electric power as “potential”. What does this mean? Well let’s say you have two buckets connected with a hose. When one bucket is full and the other is empty the water will flow from the full bucket to the empty. To use the power, you let the flow of water do your work, for example spin a water wheel.
In the power grid, we have alternating power, meaning which bucket is the “full one” varies 50 or 60 times per second. The same potential is there, just in opposite direction. (The water is flowing between the buckets, but in alternating directions).
When you have 2 buckets, you get one “phase” (hose). If you add one more bucket, now you get 3 phases, one between each pair of buckets.
Instead of varying back and forth between 2 buckets, it now varies between 3. One is full, one is half full and one is empty. That means that you will have 3 hoses with flow in different directions to drive your water wheels instead of just one.
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