Electrical System Phases | Teems Electric

If you’re familiar with residential power and working on your first project in the commercial side or even if you’re just shopping for some commercial equipment, maybe for your garage or kitchen, you may be surprised to learn there’s more than one type of power supply.

Most people never give electricity a second thought, content to rely on electricians such as the professionals at Teems handle their projects and trusting the lines to keep everything juiced. While they may be familiar with terms such as amps, hertz, volts and watts, they may have never heard the word “phase” associated with their appliances or power supply.

What Are Electric Phases?

First of all, the reason most customers are surprised to learn about this concept is that most residential areas are only served with single-phase power. If you’ve never had to think of an alternative, there’s a good chance you’ve never considered this particular of electricity.

The term phase simply refers to how the electrical load is distributed in a circuit. With single-phase power there’s one live wire (hence the “single” in single phase) and one neutral wire, and the current moves between the two. This type of supply is perfect for lighter power loads, such as those required for household appliances, lighting and HVAC.

Three-phase power is more commonly used for heavy equipment, such as large engines employed in factories and cooking equipment found in commercial kitchens. As you may guess, it relies on three wires in the circuit, which helps eliminate the zero-power spots in the cycling of alternating current power through a single-phase circuit.

That means more power and more consistency than is provided by single-phase power, and all that is done with less conductor material than what is required for single-phase supplies.

In the United States, most of the power grid is built for three-phase power, which is why most buildings can be wired to accommodate commercial operations. Transformers along the transmission lines bring the supply to single-phase for supply where necessary.

The experts at Teems Electric can help you understand all the particulars of the electrical demands of any project you have in mind, commercial or residential. Give us a call today to get a partner that will help you walk through every step of the work.