What is the electrical frequency in the Philippines?

Answer 1

My understanding of this odd situation is this:

The power generation in the Philippines was originally set up pre-WWII, when it was a colony of the USA. They naturally followed the American standard of 110V, 60Hz.


Later, when the Philippines became independent, they wished to change their power supply to match most of the rest of Asia, i.e. 220v 50Hz. They went ahead, but discovered that the General Electric generators that had been installed in all their power stations only ran at 60 cycles. So, instead of replacing the machines, they simply converted the power supply to 220v, but it remains at 60Hz. This has meant historically that any motorized equipment not specifically designed for this singular situation would either run to fast (110v 50Hz) or wouldn't work at all because the voltage was insufficient to power the motor (220v 60Hz).


With many of today's electronics being multi-voltage/multi Hz, this is increasingly less of a problem, but simpler appliances like hair dryers, turn-tables, microwaves etc. are still problematic.


This is how an old friend who's lived in Manila for 30 years has explained it to me. Any comments on it's accuracy?

Answer 2

60hZ