Question

Go through the passage below and answer the question that follows.

When the first long-distance transmission lines were energised more than a century ago, engineers quickly learned that high voltage was the only practical way to move large amounts of power across great distances.

Transformers at each end of the line raised and lowered the voltage, cutting the current and with it the energy wasted as heat in the conductors.

Yet every gain brought new dangers: insulators flashed over in the rain, switchgear burst under short-circuit currents, and lightning struck the exposed wires. The modern substation was born of this struggle, a fenced yard of busbars, breakers and relays whose whole purpose is to make that invisible power safe to control.

According to the passage, high voltage was preferred for long-distance transmission mainly because it —