Outlets and Plugs

While living in Botswana, I’ve developed a strange fascination with electrical plugs and converters, making me a bit like Arthur Weasley in the Harry Potter novels (if you're not a Harry Potter fan, refer to http://www.hp-lexicon.org/wizards/arthur.html). You see, our house here in Gaborone has two different kinds of electrical outlets, British and South African. 

The two kinds of outlets in our house are the
 South African Type M (left) and the British Type G (right). 

But our various electrical devices have six kinds of plugs: South African, British, and European on items we've acquired here, plus three-prong US, two-prong US, and USB on items we brought along from the US. Further complicating matters is the issue of voltage, because supply here is 220 V, in contrast to the US, where most outlets provide 110 V. As a result, we need a plethora of different converters, transformers, and adapters to cover all the required combinations. And when you put it all together, you get an ugly, sloppy, unruly mess, like this. 

This chaos of plugs and cords is what we need in the living room to run the TV, the router, and the power strip full of USB chargers for our US electronics.

Must this be so complicated? The reasons why voltage levels vary from country to country date back to the early development of electrical systems. In the US, Thomas Edison in the late 1800s set the standard at 110 V because it suited his carbon filament light bulbs and also because this voltage level reduced the risk of injury from shocks. Electrification in Europe occurred slightly later, and by that time metal filament lamps that could withstand higher voltages had been developed. Thus European companies, starting with BEW in Germany, went with 220-V systems, which enabled greater distribution efficiency. Also, they use lower current and thus need less copper in wiring. Note that the modern US system does distribute 220-V power via a three-wire system (+110 V, - 110 V and a neutral wire). But given the inertia of existing infrastructure, most outlets in US homes are still wired for 110 V, except for those used for clothes dryers, stoves, and air conditioners.

Type N outlet, the supposed
international standard.

And why aren’t plugs and outlets standardized? (Or is that standardised? If we can’t even agree on how to spell, why should anyone expect agreement on plug configurations?) The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) addresses this question at http://www.iec.ch/worldplugs/why_so_many.htm, where it points out that sockets and plugs developed independently around the world. Early efforts at standardization were slow going and then further delayed by World War II. By that time, existing regional infrastructure was largely developed and “vested interests were built right into our walls.” Although the IEC issued an international standard, Type N in 1970, only Brazil has adopted it. 

Here in Botswana, the British Type G outlets are a a legacy of Botswana’s history as a British protectorate, known as Bechuanaland, until it became independent in 1966. Thus older homes tend to have mostly British G outlets. More recently though, as Botswana’s economy has become closely tied to its much larger neighbor South Africa, major appliances and electrical goods made for the South African market are mainly what’s on offer in Botswana stores. The town home we live in was built 4 years ago and has got a mix of the two. To add to the confusion, some devices, like the transformer and the Wi Fi router, have European plugs.

How do we cope? Voltage is less of an issue than one might expect. Chargers for computers, mobile phones, tablets, and other electronics nowadays are designed to run on voltage ranging from 100 V to 240 V, so that’s a non-problem. The only concern is for items with motors, such as the small spice grinder that we brought from the US. That requires a transformer to step down the voltage from 220 to 110. One day Rishi forgot about that when he was using the spice grinder, but not for long, because it started to smell like burning wiring after just a second or two.

Plug type is a lot more cumbersome. Consider the setup shown below. 

To accommodate our 110 V spice grinder, we're using (from right to left) an adapter from 3-prong
grounded US to 2-prong US, a transformer (the big blue and white thing), an adapter from 2-prong
European to three-prong South African, and an adapter from South African to British. Got that? 

After growing exasperated with how sloppy the outlets looked, I ordered a couple of handy converters online to add to the inventory we already had. My favorite is the white one shown at the top center in the photo below. It fits into a British outlet, provides surge protection, and has space for a two-prong US plug on top, a three-prong US plug on the front, and a USB device on the bottom. It’s amazing and kind of weird how something like this can make me happy. Go figure!

Shown here is a small sample of the many plugs and converters in use in our home.
The black box with the REI label at upper right is a transformer to convert from 220 V to 110 V.