alt Hacker News"Transformers are necessary to make the AC system work."
This isn't quite wrong but the motivation is backwards: AC is necessary to make transformers work.
1. All grids need to move energy at high voltage and low current to minimize losses.
2. This requires a mechanism to step voltages up and down for transmission.
3. In 1890 the only such mechanism was the transformer.
4. Transformers only work on AC, not DC.
Hence our legacy grid is AC.
Nowadays we have an additional mechanism: Power electronics. Power electronics work on both AC and DC, so transformers with their huge requirements for copper and steel are no longer necessary.
We need to accelerate the transition of our grid to DC because DC grids are simpler and cheaper than AC grids.
Replies
Grid-scale power electronics are also extremely niche and expensive, perhaps moreso than transformers. HVDC is used where it has a significant advantage, but ease of conversion is not one of those.
> so transformers with their huge requirements for copper and steel are no longer necessary.
smelting some copper and steel and wounding it up is far, far, far, far cheaper than replacing it with power silicon(which might be smaller, but overall needs tons more of energy to produce)
It will be also less reliable. Transformers deal with any overload far better and routinely run for like 50+ years