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How is it possible to have high voltage and low current? It seems to contradict the relationship between
current and voltage in E=IR

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I have read different forums and watched a few youtubes (in addition to my textbook readings) How Stack Overflow for Teams Fits
and the explanations seem to fall short. The issue seems to be how we are first taught about a into the Community
direct relationship between voltage and current (that is, an increase in voltage renders an
increase in current if resistance remains the same) and then we're taught about power lines that
have high voltage and low current (because other wise we would need thick wires that carry Linked
high current [which would run the risk of overheating due to the joule effect or something or
8
another..). So please don't explain to me the infrastructural reasons why high voltage, low
How to calculate voltage drop over and power
current is necessary for power lines. I just need to know how high voltage, low current is even
loss in wires
possible. I've only been studying DC so far so maybe AC has rules that would enlighten me...but
I thought the E=IR formula was universal. 6
How can we have high voltage and low current
voltage current (in transformers), if V = I * Impedance?

share improve this question Related

edited Feb 5 '15 at 15:42

Trying to understand the relationship between

asked Feb 3 '15 at 16:41 voltage, current, and power

Mountain Scott 4
61 1 1 7 Relationship between frequency and current

3 -1
1-Wire Network, Voltage and Current Questions
Besides that power lines carry rather high current, if you have high voltage and low current, just enter it into
ohms law, and you have a resistance to make exactly that possible – PlasmaHH Feb 3 '15 at 16:42
0
Voltage current relationship
This isn't exactly an answer to your question, but from the calculations there you should be able to figure out
the answer to your question yourself: How to calculate voltage drop over and power loss in wires – Keelan Feb
6
3 '15 at 16:47

1 How can we have high voltage and low current

(in transformers), if V = I * Impedance?
Power (P) = I.V --> I goes up, V goes down for constant power, and vice versa. – Plutonium smuggler Feb 3 '15 at
16:49
4
Understanding current, voltage and resistance

The general consensus seems to be that I should not even think about Ohm's law for power (even though it
clearly is part of the power equation) and only consider it when calculating voltage drop (or current when 0
figuring wire size). – Mountain Scott Feb 5 '15 at 16:15 BJT - Influence of increasing VCE on Ic

0
Pcustomer < PpowerPlant - PlineLoss, regardless of the intermediate voltages, currents, or resistances
between you and them. Inefficient, insufficient or failing transmission equipment increases PlineLoss at each
why reduced resistance and increased current
component per ohms law. As per my unpopular answer, customers can be billed for their usage, while power
result in an increased amount of heat
lines cannot. Omh's law determines how much usage the power lines, themselves, will consume, but power in
is always greater-than or equal-to power out. – Jon Feb 6 '15 at 9:14
1
show 3 more comments
Wire gauge for low voltage, high current DC
12 Answers active oldest votes
application

-2

Question about voltage and current relationship

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You're confusing "high voltage" with "high voltage loss". Ohm's Law governs the loss of voltage caregiver from well meaning people?
across a resistance for a given current passing through it. Since the current is low, the voltage
Whisper who am I
loss is correspondingly low.
Where can I find publicly accessible paternoster
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answered Feb 3 '15 at 16:47 Why is this cloud blue?

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Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams
44.4k 2 58 88 pack bits in a struct c++ / arduino

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And by "voltage loss", you mean "voltage across the component". – immibis Feb 4 '15 at 7:58
how to interpret event data ethereum

Difference between Session and SessionFactory

Well if that's true (i.e., ohm's law governing loss of voltage), it makes a lot more sense to me now. However, in Magento 2
that creates another question. As far as forum rules go, am I supposed to form a new question or just ask it
as part of this thread? – Mountain Scott Feb 5 '15 at 15:51 Is there a quick way to write say positive integers
in an interval in mathematical notation?

Is it acceptable to do a security test on a

New questions should have a new question opened, but if it is related to another question then linking to that company's open WiFi before an interview?
related question is acceptable. – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams Feb 5 '15 at 16:04 Unable to run lerna's command

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numbers?

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You are confused about the consumer load and the resistance of the cables.
Thoroughly Despicable Characters
The point is that power is the product of voltage and current. To transmit the same power to a
How can I decline someone's business card with
consumer load, you can increase the voltage and decrease the current. tact?

If the light in your house needs 100W, say 10A at 10V, this can be transferred from the power Why does having a soda tax seem so hard to
achieve?
plant directly.

Let's say the cable between your house and the plant has 10 Ohm. If you sink 10A from the question feed
plant, the plant has to provide 110V: At 10A, a voltage drop of 100V occurs on the cable, plus
the 10V you need. This means, you consume 100W while the cable wastes 1000W.

Now, let's say your house receives 1000V.

Of course, you need a transformer to convert the delivered voltage to the voltage needed by
the light!

The current consumed from the plant is now only 0.1A.

The voltage drop on the cable is now just 1V, which means 0.1W loss to power your 100W light.
This is much better.

The point is the use of the transformer which allows to convert voltages and currents while
maintaining the power:

U1 ⋅ I1 = U2 ⋅ I2 = const.

share improve this answer

answered Feb 3 '15 at 17:10

sweber
7,363 1 8 25

I guess I'm just having trouble conceptualizing voltage as potential energy. – Mountain Scott Feb 5 '15 at 15:46

No, that's not the point (and even physically not correct). It is really power = U*I , the fact that high
currents in a cable cause high voltage drop / power loss and that you need transformers. – sweber Feb 6 '15 at
17:10

I think it's my fault that you misunderstand me. I wasn't looking for the benefits of high voltage, low current
for power lines. I already understood that. I was looking for how it is possible to create the pressure (voltage)
without causing electrons to increase in speed (current) (and thus causing the wires to overheat and melt). If
you are saying that thinking about voltage as potential energy is wrong, you're going against a far-reaching
didactic tradition (because this analogy is made a lot), but I'm definitely interested in hearing why you say it
is not correct. – Mountain Scott Feb 6 '15 at 18:24

@MountainScott by increasing the resistance (at the end of the cable, not the resistance of the cable itself
 which would just waste power) – immibis Feb 9 '15 at 0:26

@immibis makes sense to me. thanks. – Mountain Scott Feb 10 '15 at 15:37

The power distribution system uses transformers to step the voltage up or down.

Transformers handle Power (Voltage times Current). The power fed into a transformer will be
equal to the power taken from the transformer (neglecting small losses) so we can calculate the
voltage and current on each side of the transformer using the formula

Vin x Iin = Vout x Iout

Using this formula, you can see that if the input voltage is 10 times the output voltage, the input
current must be 1/10 of the output current.

share improve this answer

answered Feb 3 '15 at 17:20

Peter Bennett
32.1k 1 21 55

At the risk of adding confusion, I'll add some more information: A transformer is also an impedance
converter. The impedance of source or load goes up or down across a transformer in the same direction as
the voltage goes up or down, but the impedance ratio is squared while the voltage and current ratios are
"straight", compared to the turns ratio. Plug this into Ohm's Law to see that it exactly makes up for the
voltage changing in one direction and the current changing in the opposite direction to keep the power equal.
– AaronD Feb 3 '15 at 20:55

The upshot of all this is that your house, when "seen" by the high-voltage distribution lines through a step-
down transformer, appears to have much higher impedance than it really does, and it's this higher
impedance that goes into Ohm's Law for the distribution line. Thus, higher voltage, lower current. – AaronD
Feb 3 '15 at 20:57

One word: Resistance. Recall that Voltage is calculated by multiplying the current by the
resistance. You can have a high potential difference (which is what voltage is), and a low
current, simply by having a high resistance in place to block that current.

Think of it like a water hose turned on full blast, with a hose gun attached to the end. The hose
gun acts as a varying resistor controlled by the user, so even though there's high potential
energy in the hose (the water wanting to flow), the resistance is so great that little to no water
flows. As the user presses the trigger, the resistance lowers until water flows more and more.

share improve this answer

answered Feb 3 '15 at 17:47

MDMoore313
397 2 14

Just seems that if transformers create more resistance (or impedance, I suppose), that that would cause a
decrease in both voltage AND current (making the output useless)...is it that the current is already relatively
high and the "high voltage/low current" relationship in power lines is all relative as well? – Mountain Scott Feb
5 '15 at 16:22

4
Your confusion comes from the fact that you're forgetting about receiver's resistance. Basically
it looks like this:

power plant -> wire -> receiver -> return wire -> power plant

The voltage in the wire (or power plant) is high and the resistances of the wires are low, so you
think that the current should be high. Right, but now consider that the receiver has a very high
resistance. This is what makes the current in this circuit low.

So you have high voltage and low current because of high resistance of the receiver between
the wires. It's totally consistent with Ohm's law: I = U/R and R is very big, so I is small.

In this simplified scenario if we increase the power plant's voltage, we must also increase the
receiver's resistance, if we want to keep the receiver's power constant.

In reality receivers run behind transformers which convert high voltage to low (constant e.g.
230V in Europe). So in the above scenario when we increase the voltage in the power plant, then
we just need to change transformers (their resistance) - no need to change receiver's
resistance. All of this is transparent to the end-user.

This explains how it's possible to have high voltage and low current. And why is it better?

Remember the formula for power in relation to resistance and current - it's P = I2 ∗ R. If you
have a wire which has some constant resistance R, and then you lower the current 2 times (by
increasing the voltage 2 times), the power lost in this wire decreases 4 times. That's why it's
good to have a high voltage.
share improve this answer

edited Feb 4 '15 at 11:34

answered Feb 4 '15 at 10:19

wanson
141 2

Not an expert, but it feels like this is the direct answer to the question – pancake Aug 30 '16 at 8:39

Well, we call them "power lines" for a reason... what we are transmitting is POWER. And since
P = VI, we can transmit the same amount of power at 10, 000 volts using a current of 0.1 amps,
or at 100 volts and 10 amps. ((10, 000V × 0.1A = 1000 Watts) is equivalent to (
100 V × 10 A = 1000 Watts)).

So a power plant can transmit the same amount of power ( 1000 Watts in this example) using
10, 000 Volts and just a tenth of an Amp, or 100 Volts at 10 Amps. What motivates their decision,
then? Money. The V = IR relationship you mentioned determines the voltage drop across the
cables that transmit power. Naturally, those cables are designed with as low resistance as
possible, but that resistance cannot be eliminated. Recall that P = VI, so a drop in voltage
results in a drop in power. Any loss of power along the transmission lines is waste, and the
power company loses money.

Also note that when we combine these two equations, we can write the power equation as
P = I2R. This illustrates that loss of power is proportional to the SQUARE of current for a set
resistance. So if the power company can reduce current by raising voltage, the benefit of that
reduction is squared. In this example, dropping the current by a factor of 100 (from 10 Amps
down to 0.1 Amps) reduces the power loss by a factor of 10, 000.

share improve this answer

edited Feb 4 '15 at 21:03

Null
4,723 10 20 33

answered Feb 4 '15 at 20:28

user65963
41 1
 I found this a great explanation. Thank you. – Quazi Irfan Mar 27 at 9:37

One way to look at it is to ask what's at the other end of the power-line: a customer. The
customer doesn't buy current or voltage he/she buys power (watts). So, if a power supplier
delivers a given amount of power they can use thinner wires by upping the voltage and lowering
the current for a given amount of power.
share improve this answer

answered Feb 3 '15 at 17:29

Mike
21 1

The question asks how it's possible, not why it's done. – immibis Feb 9 '15 at 0:26

You say, "that is, an increase in voltage renders an increase in current if resistance remains the
same". That's correct except that higher voltage circuits use higher load resistances for a given
power.

e.g. 120 W, 120 V bulb would draw 1 A. (I = P/V = 120/120 = 1.) It's resistance (when hot) would
be 120Ω. (R = V/I = 120/1 = 120.)

simulate this circuit – Schematic created using CircuitLab

A 120 W, 12 V bulb would draw 10 A (I = P/V = 120/12 = 10). It's resistance (when hot) would be
1.2Ω (R = V/I = 12/10 = 1.2). Note that dropping the voltage by a factor of 10 requires the
current to increase by a factor of 10 to give the same power. Also note that the resistance
decreased by 10² = 100!

As your gut told you, if you increase the voltage without increasing the resistance the current
will increase.
share improve this answer

answered Oct 2 '15 at 21:55

Transistor
64.9k 5 63 142

If P = IV it would mean that if V increases I would have to decrease. For example: if P = 12 an V

= 3 then I would have to be 4. But if you step up V - you step down I for example: if V Became 8
then I would become 1.5. A low current is necessary because less energy is lost. Imagine that
the electrons within the cable were shoppers and that the energy they carried was money. Now
imagine a line of 100 shoppers rushing out of a building each carry $15 but all have to pass
through an alleyway(the alleyway being the cable) and every time they bumped into each other
they lost $1(energy lost as heat energy). Now imagine what it would be like if there were only
10 people carrying $150 and how much less they would lose.

share improve this answer

answered Nov 7 '15 at 14:59

Ivan
1

In direct response to the original post, it seems to me that all of you have over-complicated
what the answer to his question really is. Although your provided information is great to
include, the question seems unanswered. E=IR Your understanding that an increase in voltage
should result in an increase in current is correct - swap out a 3v battery in a simple circuit for a
9v and you've jumped 3x current as well.

High voltage/low current and vice versa is a TRANSFORMATION of what is ALREADY there - you
are not swapping a battery (or any voltage source) with another. A transformer works because
of watt's law: power is constant (resistance is constant in ohm's law) and power is current x
voltage, or "P = EI"

A change in voltage is an inverse change in current, and vice versa, where power is conserved.

share improve this answer

answered Nov 14 '15 at 17:35

user91724
1

It appears to me that you are having conceptualization troubles, which I will address in my
answer.

It is true the (1) E = IR is a universal formula. However, you have to understand that it can also
be expressed as (2) R = E/I, and (3) I = E/R.

Using form(2), I will show your current understanding of the formula. If you make the voltage 10
times larger (10E), in order to keep the resistance the same (unchanged), the current will also
have to increase 10 times R = E/I = 10E/10I. However, I can also increase the voltage and
maintain the current the same by increasing the resistance 10 times I = E/R = 10E/10R. So,
with form (3), I am able to show that it is possible to increase the voltage (10E) without
having to increase the current (maintain the current "low" (I)).

share improve this answer

answered Dec 4 '15 at 0:26

Guill
1,878 3 5

-1

It sounds like there are three general answers to this question so far. To summarize:
1. Transformers are magic. Once you introduce transformers, V = IR no longer applies so it's
fine to have high voltage and low current because the system is no longer Ohmic. The
system does, however, obey the transformer equation,

V1 × I1 = V2 × I2 = constant

2. The power plant - power line - receiver system can be modeled essentially as a single
resistor circuit (where power plant = battery, power lines = wires, and receiver = single
resistor). Thus it's the receiver's resistance that matters, and because that resistance tends
to be high the entire system does obey Ohm's law: high voltage and high resistance yield
low current
3. There's a fundamental misinterpretation of Ohm's law at work here. The V in Ohm's law is
not the value of the voltage in the system, it's the voltage drop across a particular resistor
or circuit element. A less sloppy way of writing Ohm's law might be △ V = IR. Thus power
lines do obey Ohm's law, and the confusion comes from the fact that we're sloppy in our
language. So, a high-voltage power line might have a voltage of 110kV at the start (relative
to ground) and 110kV - 2V at the end, giving a voltage drop of △ V = 2V over the length of
the power line. The power line has fairly low resistivity, so the total resistance is low, and so
low voltage drop and low resistance yield low current, in accordance to Ohm's law. In this
way, it's totally fine to have high voltage values and low current in power lines.

Of these three explanations, I'm inclined to believe the third one. The first is just a restatement
of the equation, and gives us no extra information about the physical mechanism or the logic of
the situation. The second is possible, but seems like it would be overly complicated by the fact
that there are actually many receivers drawing on power lines so it should really be modeled as
a much more complex circuit. The third allows us to keep Ohm's law intact while also squaring it
away with the other relevant equations.

All that being said, this is a simplified model of what's going on ignoring more complicated
effects due to AC instead of DC.
share improve this answer

edited Oct 2 '15 at 20:39

answered Oct 2 '15 at 0:29

Quantumplation
1 1

protected by Community ♦ Feb 15 '16 at 18:37

Thank you for your interest in this question. Because it has attracted low-quality or spam answers that had to be
removed, posting an answer now requires 10 reputation on this site (the association bonus does not count).

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