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To get back to your question, Japan’s bifurcated power system is a holdover from the 19th century, when early power ventures were small in scale and highly localized. In Tokyo, entrepreneurs who were already providing electric lighting in a limited area, using direct current, decided to expand their business by importing high-voltage alternating-current generators from Germany. The German equipment, purchased from the company that became AEG, worked on a frequency of 50 Hz. Meanwhile, the local power providers in Osaka brought in 60 Hz generators from the United States, supplied by the predecessor of General Electric Company. Surely no one was thinking about compatibility: Who then could have imagined that electric systems some 500 km apart might ever connect?
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