Electronic – Why is there alternating current in the wall socket

accurrentdc

Why is the standard of delivering electricity to our homes is via alternating current, and not direct? As far as I know almost every electronic device has an AC»DC converter because their internals use direct current.

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From Wiki:

Transmission loss

The advantage of AC for distributing power over a distance is due to the ease of changing voltages using a transformer. Available electric power is the product of current × voltage at the load. For a given amount of power, a low voltage requires a higher current and a higher voltage requires a lower current. Since metal conducting wires have an almost fixed electrical resistance, some power will be wasted as heat in the wires. This power loss is given by Joule's first law and is proportional to the square of the current. Thus, if the overall transmitted power is the same, and given the constraints of practical conductor sizes, high-current, low-voltage transmissions will suffer a much greater power loss than low-current, high-voltage ones. This holds whether DC or AC is used.

Converting DC power from one voltage to another requires a large spinning rotary converter or motor-generator set, which was difficult, expensive, inefficient, and required maintenance, whereas with AC the voltage can be changed with simple and efficient transformers that have no moving parts and require very little maintenance. This was the key to the success of the AC system. Modern transmission grids regularly use AC voltages up to 765,000 volts.

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