You get 3-phase in the US if you live in a large apartment complex. Especially if it has an elevator. Since this combines to get 208V, the math works out to making your 240V stove only 75% of what it should be.
For residential use, split phase is fine. We just run the two legs to get 240V on the specific things that need it. That’s generally electric stoves, water heaters, AC unit, electric dryer, and more recently, EV chargers. 3-phase is great when you’re driving something that spins with a high draw, and of those, only the AC unit does that (electric dryers spend most of their electricity heating, not spinning).
Edison distributed ±110V DC against neutral, three wires, your AC system was designed to use those exact wires, then you expanded that compromise to the whole continent.
Europe in the beginning also had those small insular installations with odd systems but once it came to actually hooking up whole countries everyone opted for three-phase because it’s the most sensible option. Whether or not the distribution network itself uses three conductors (just the phases) or four (plus neutral, or combined earth+neutral) differs quite wildly. Train electricity is still a clusterfuck.
It’s mostly for commercial installations, but you can get 3-phase 480V here if you want it.
I don’t think this has much to do with the grid, though. It’s more that we started with 120V appliances, so that’s what we built our homes to support.
You get 3-phase in the US if you live in a large apartment complex. Especially if it has an elevator. Since this combines to get 208V, the math works out to making your 240V stove only 75% of what it should be.
For residential use, split phase is fine. We just run the two legs to get 240V on the specific things that need it. That’s generally electric stoves, water heaters, AC unit, electric dryer, and more recently, EV chargers. 3-phase is great when you’re driving something that spins with a high draw, and of those, only the AC unit does that (electric dryers spend most of their electricity heating, not spinning).
Edison distributed ±110V DC against neutral, three wires, your AC system was designed to use those exact wires, then you expanded that compromise to the whole continent.
Europe in the beginning also had those small insular installations with odd systems but once it came to actually hooking up whole countries everyone opted for three-phase because it’s the most sensible option. Whether or not the distribution network itself uses three conductors (just the phases) or four (plus neutral, or combined earth+neutral) differs quite wildly. Train electricity is still a clusterfuck.