Before 1948, there was something particular about electricity in Southern California. Plug in a Warren/Telechron electric clock from outside the region and it would lose 10 minutes every hour. Play music on a record player from San Francisco and it would sound slow and drowsy. The reason ? Southern California's alternating current cycled at a frequency of 50 hz rather than 60 hz

A standard was not yet in place when the nations first commercial three-phase power generating and distribution system, Mill Creek No. 1 near Redlands, CA went online in 1893. As the generators and distribution system was being constructed, it was up to engineers at General Electric to determine the operating frequency. Westinghouse, GE's primary rival, was already designing equipment for 60 hz. However, GE decided on 50 hz which was also favored by their German affiliate, AEG. For decades afterward much of Southern California operate at 50 hz while rest of the nation would standardize on 60 hz

By 1936, Los Angeles Bureau of Power and Light (Now LADWP) converted to 60 hz in order to accept power from Boulder (Hoover) dam but it wasn't until 1945 when Southern California Edison began the conversion of its power and distribution network to 60 hz. Over the next three years, Southern California Edison brought out 60 hz power to its 765,000 (at the time) customers. Generating and distribution equipment were retrofitted and “clock exchange” depots where Edison customers could bring in their existing 50 hz appliances for modification or exchange were setup across the region. The eventual total consisted of about 475,000 clocks, 380,000 lighting fixtures, and 58,000 refrigerators. Converting to 60 hz costed Edison 34.4 million dollars but on October 27, 1948; Southern California Edison’s grid finally operated in unison with the rest of the nation.


Its been almost 69 years since Southern California Edison, the primary utility company for much of Southern California, completed the conversion to 60 hz alternating current but I wonder what would it be like if So. Cal was still on a 50 hz power grid. The prime example I could think of is Japan; the Eastern half of the country operates at 50 hz while the Western half operates at 60 hz.


 

Why do we run on 60Hz rather than 50Hz anyway?

From what I understand, Tesla, among others, recommended 220V and 60Hz as the world standard. A cycle of 60Hz makes it easier to calculate 3-phase systems. In North America, it was seen as a prudent move to lower the voltage to 110V for "safety" reasons. In Europe and many other countries, they kept the 220V and lowered the 60Hz to 50Hz for a very political reason : 50 more closely resembles the metric system than 60Hz. Now that the tradition is well established and that there are enormous amounts of appliances and machines that operate on electricity, it is way too difficult to change.

Note : 110V mains were augmented to 120V, and 220V mains were augmented to 230V in some places and 240V in others.

If it was possible, I would vote for 240V and 60Hz as a world wide standard.

+1

I think the only advantage with 120v is with incandescent filaments.


That and powercon true1 for connectors. Those things are awesome.

New York City had both direct current distribution and 25 Hertz distribution until just recently. Con-Edison generated 25 Hz. power for  rotary converter stations that supplied their direct current street network. All rotary converters were retired along with the associated 25 Hz. supply by 1977 and direct current was being supplied by rectifiers in street vaults. In 1977, there were still 12,000 direct current customers in Manhattan. By 2000,there were 5,000 direct current customers. Con-Edison embarked on a program to finally shut down it's direct current network. The Company gave the customers the choice of either installing rectifiers on the customers premises to supply existing DC equipment, or change all of the customers equipment to AC. In either case Con-Edison paid for the conversion. In 2007, after over 125 years, Con-Edison shut down their Direct Current network.
 Con-Edison also had a 25Hz supply for the rotary converters used by the New York City subway. The private companies that had originally constructed the subway had built three power plants that supplied 11,000 volt,25Hz to rotary converter stations located along the right of way. The City built its' own subway in the 1920's and 30's,but this system used commercial 60 Hz power to supply mostly mercury arc rectifiers located along the right of way. In 1940,the City purchased the privately run subways( the Interborough Rapid Transit Company, IRT, and the Brooklyn Manhattan Transit Company,BMT, and combined them with the Independent City Owned Subway,IND.)  By 1959, the power plants that the City had taken over from the IRT and BMT were badly in need of upgrading. The City chose to sell the plants to Con-Edison,with the understanding that the utility had to maintain the 25Hz supply for 40 years. The last rotary converter station on the NYC subway was retired in 1999.

Why do we run on 60Hz rather than 50Hz anyway?

60cy/sec happens to be a happy medium frequency for a lot of stuff like transformer design and transmission lines.  50cy/sec is worse, but not by enough to justify conversion of extant 50cy/sec systems.  Tesla and other early Westinghouse engineers actually recommended 133-1/3cy/sec and that is what was used for the Great Barrington Electrification.