What is the actual purpose of AC power?

356 views

I have a very limited knowledge of electrical engineering that almost entirely revolves around music equipment. From everything that I’ve seen, music equipment ends up converting the AC power to DC power right at the power entry point (or at least soon after). It appears they’re converting AC power to a higher voltage and current DC power. Is the only real advantage of AC power to pump more power over a line to where devices will then manipulate it to what they need in DC? Are there any common household items that actually fully operate off of AC power or does everything convert to DC at some point?

In: 5

11 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Back in the day, it was incredibly difficult to transmit DC power long distances. To power a city you’d basically have to install a generator every block.

AC, otoh, was relatively easy to transmit long distances, so you could (for example) power NYC with a hydroelectric plant in Niagra Falls.

These days we do know how to transmit DC long distances and it is more effecient than AC, but replacing the entire power grid for any country is a multi billion if not multi trillion dollar project

You are viewing 1 out of 11 answers, click here to view all answers.