My experience in The Netherlands was that the PE ground was provided
by the utility in parallel to the Neutral and phase connections, no
local bonding other than that the water pipe or the steel radiant
heating pipe was bonded to the incoming ground from the utility. The
only place where the utility ground was staked was at the
"transformerhouse" since the water line coming into the house was not
metallic but typically a type of plastic, there was no grounding
through the bonding to the water and heating lines inside the house,
that was just the safety for the occupants that the water and heating
systems were grounded through the incoming ground wire from the
utility, staked at the secondary of the central transformer.
NOTE that most Norway and a few smaller areas have an "IT" system:
Isolated Terra, in other words: the secondary of the transformer is
*floating*. Ground is staked but not connected to Neutral. Each of the
phases can have any ground potential between 0V and 400V, depending
only on faults in the system, but the advantage is that you can have a
single ground fault in the system WITHOUT losing power. This was seen
as an advantage for Hospitals and apparently was used for most of
Norway. This make the (required for EV chargers) "ground presence"
detection impossible for Norway, so we had to add a defeat option that
could be enabled for chargers shipped to Norway's IT areas.
On Mon, Mar 11, 2024 at 6:52 PM Bill Dube via EV <ev@lists.evdl.org> wrote:
>
> Most of the world outside North America, is 230-240 VAC to ground. Split
> single phase, 120-neutral-120, is essentially only in North America.
>
> Normal circuit breakers are only single pole and only switch the live
> conductor. It is not common to find a circuit breaker that cuts the
> neutral as well as the live conductor. In the US, a two pole breaker is
> feeding a 240 circuit, and each conductor (black and white/red) are 120
> Vac to neutral. The 240 v appliance may not have need of the neutral
> conductor.
>
> In the the US and Canada, the neutral conductor is connected to the
> ground (earth) conductor ONLY in the main (first in line) service
> equipment ("panel"). The ground rod conductor and the plumbing bond
> conductor(s) also are connected at the main panel. Everywhere else the
> neural and ground are kept separate. This is the general practice in
> most of the world.
>
> The neutral coming from the utility is indeed grounded in North America.
> It is also grounded in most of the rest of the world. It kind of has to
> be, if you think about it. The utilities often sink ground rods and run
> a ground wire here and there. They do this at least in one place near
> the step-down transformer serving the branch. However, after it branches
> to different houses on the same branch, they each connect the neutral to
> a ground rod conductor in each of their main panels.
>
> What is interesting is that the live (hot) conductor in North America is
> the black colored one. Most other places, the black is neutral (ground
> potential).
>
> The US has, by far, the world's thickest electrical code book. :-)
>
> In NZ, they routinely run 10 amps through 1mm^2 wire. (You are allowed
> to put up to 16 amps depending on insulation type and installation
> methods.) This is equivalent to a 17 AWG wire. The wiring is much
> thinner in the rest of the world than it it is the US.
>
> Bill D.
>
>
> On 3/12/2024 12:51 PM, EV List Lackey via EV wrote:
> > On 11 Mar 2024 at 20:33, Lawrence Winiarski via EV wrote:
> >
> >> Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think at least some of the non-us
> >> households ONLY have 240 volts (i.e they don't bring 480 into the
> >> panel and have split transformers like we have but rather they
> >> groundone leg as a neutral)
> > I don't know about other places, but France doesn't have an equivalent of
> > the US split phase system.
> >
> > It's 400 / 230 volt 3-phase. Older and/or larger houses often have 3-phase
> > installed, especially if they were once farms or businesses. Newer houses
> > usually just get one phase and neutral.
> >
> > You can request 3-phase from the utility, and charge your EV at up to 22kW,
> > if the onboard charger allows. (32a * 230v * 3ph) But the cost will be
> > higher.
> >
> > Circuit breakers are always double-pole, so they open both hot and neutral.
> >
> >> That means our 240 has a slight advantage in that each leg is only 120v
> >> above
> >> ground, while I think some countries have a 240 with a hot and neutralleg.
> > Yep, hot and neutral. For a 3-phase installation, 3 hots and a neutral.
> >
> > As I understand it, the neutral isn't grounded ahead of the house. Maybe
> > that's why a lightning arrestor is usually fitted to the main panel. But
> > the neutral IS grounded at the main house service entrance, so the potential
> > to ground is 230v.
> >
> > Hence a 500ma main RCD, and smaller 30ma RCDs on each panel bus.
> >
> > David Roden, EVDL moderator & general lackey
> >
> > To reach me, don't reply to this message; I won't get it. Use my
> > offlist address here : http://evdl.org/help/index.html#supt
> >
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> >
> > Listen to the mustn'ts, child; listen to the don'ts.
> > Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts.
> > Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me:
> > Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.
> >
> > -- Shel Silverstein
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> >
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