Around the world most high-voltage overhead transmission and distribution lines and many underground lines are made of aluminium. Aluminium replaced copper in high-voltage transmission lines after 1945 and today is the most economical way to transmit electric power. Aluminium weighs only one-third as much as copper and one kilogram of aluminium can carry twice as much electricity as one kilogram of copper. Aluminium power lines are therefore lighter and require fewer, and lighter support structures. Aluminium power lines can be made of single-strand wires, of many wires stranded together or, for maximum strength, of aluminium strands wrapped around a steel core.
Many substations are almost all aluminium.
The power systems of the world's largest buildings, like the World Trade Center in New York, are made of aluminium. Since the 1950s aluminium has practically replaced brass as the standard base for the electric light bulb. Every year in North America, more than four billion light bulbs, fluorescent tubes and other electric lamps are manufactured and 95 per cent of them have aluminium bases. Thousands of television antennae and many satellite dishes are also made of aluminium. Your use of this site signifies your agreement to the Protocols and Guidelines of Use .