[cripplecreek]

Thank you. I was leaning toward disbelief based on the fact that my electric company doesn’t operate in a closed grid. Seems like any change would cause conflicts within the grid as a whole.

[Nervous Tick]

>> Seems like any change would cause conflicts within the grid as a whole.

OH yeah. Big time!

To say nothing of Mom ‘n Pop refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, dishwashers, septic pumps, and other motor driven appliances that would underperform, or fail.

And that doesn’t include entire industries that would grind to a halt.

There’s nothing magical about 60Hz line frequency (witness other countries, who use 50Hz). But once you standardize on the frequency, all hell breaks loose if you change it, particularly for electric motor applications.

And — to reiterate an earlier point — changing the line frequency (alone, unilaterally) buys the electric company nothing. So why would they do it?

[cva66snipe]

Dim lights? That sounds more like a low voltage issue in your neighborhood. That would likely be caused by the local grid being overtaxed and upgrades needed. The further you are from the sub station unless they use step up transformers in their system along the primary line route {lines on the street} the lower your voltage can be. Distance alone cause voltage drop. If your area underwent a build up in the past couple of decades as in more houses, businesses, etc then this is the most likely problem.

As for cycles? Most electrical items built in the past 30 years or so can operate at 50-60 cycles {HZ} as Europe is 50 HZ best I recall and applicances and other items are made to be sold and used world wide. 40 HZ would burn things up fast.