Electronic – Considering power loss in a simple series connection due to cable

electricitypowerresistanceseries

A friend and I are struggling on a simple electricity exercise:

A heater is connected to a \$U = 230V\$ power network over a copper cable. The cable has a cross-section of \$A = 1.5mm^{2}\$ and a length of \$l = 200m\$. The heater has a net voltage and net power of \$ U_{n} = 230V, P_{n} = 2200W \$.
Calculate the actual net power of the heater and the power loss due to the cable. Also calculate the total power which is drawn from the network. Put the net power and the loss power into relationship with the total power.

This is our way to our solution:
We considered the cable as a separate resistance which is connected to the heater in series. With the data of the cable and a specific conductivity of \$58.11\$ we get a resistance of \$2.29\Omega\$ for the cable.

The great question for us is how the heater behaves now that it won't get the voltage of \$230 V\$. It was not explained in the lecture how it behaves in such a case. We assume that it has a constant resistance. Assuming \$230 V\$ and taking the net power consumption of the heater we get a drawn current of \$\frac{2200W}{230V} = 9.57A\$. This yields a resistance of \$R_{Heater} = \frac{230V}{9.57A} = 24.03\Omega\$.

Hence the total resistance in the circuit is \$R_{total} = 24.03\Omega + 2.29\Omega = 26.32\Omega\$. With that we can calculate the total drawn current: \$I_{total} = \frac{230V}{26.32\Omega} = 8.74A\$

Calculating the voltages on the single components yields:
\$U_{Heater} = 24.03\Omega * 8.74A = 210.02V, U_{cable} = 20.01V\$

The actual power consumption of the heater thus is \$P_{Heater} = 210.02V * 8.74A = 1835.57W\$; and for the cable (power loss): \$P_{cable} = 20.01V * 8.74A = 174.93W\$ The total power consumption should then be: \$P_{total} = 2010,5W\$

The solution says we have a total power \$P_{total} = 1835.57W\$ which is exactly the power the heater uses in our solution. This was then divided in actual net power of around 1500 and power loss of around 335 (so they add up). This hints that we are not completely wrong but made a mistake somewhere in our thinking process. We were confused because we don't know how the heater behaves. Reverse Engineering the provided solution gave no clue on what could be wrong.

I hope someone can help us to solve this.

Thanks.

Best Answer

I believe your problem is that you calculated the resistance of a single conductor on the cable. The total resistance of the cable is twice that since the cable has two conductors. Otherwise, your approach is correct. If you re-calculate the problem with the total cable resistance you should get the same answer as the given solution.