A power station , also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant , is an industrial facility for the generation of electric power . Power stations are generally connected to an electrical grid .
128-544: The Cul De Sac Power Station is a power station in Castries , Saint Lucia . It is the only power station in the country. The power station was commissioned in 1990. It replaces the previous two power stations in Union and Vieux Fort . The power station has an installed generation of 87.4 MW with an installed capacity of 86.2 MW. The outgoing of the power station goes to seven electrical substations . The type of fuel used
256-424: A conductor creates an electric current . The energy source harnessed to turn the generator varies widely. Most power stations in the world burn fossil fuels such as coal , oil , and natural gas to generate electricity. Low-carbon power sources include nuclear power , and use of renewables such as solar , wind , geothermal , and hydroelectric . In early 1871 Belgian inventor Zénobe Gramme invented
384-579: A transformer to step up voltage for long-distance transmission and then stepped it back down for indoor lighting, a more efficient and less expensive system which is similar to modern systems. The war of the currents eventually resolved in favor of AC distribution and utilization, although some DC systems persisted to the end of the 20th century. DC systems with a service radius of a mile (kilometer) or so were necessarily smaller, less efficient of fuel consumption, and more labor-intensive to operate than much larger central AC generating stations. AC systems used
512-514: A 2-mile (3.2 km) length of Broadway in New York City with a 3,500–volt demonstration arc lighting system. The disadvantages of arc lighting were: it was maintenance intensive, buzzed, flickered, constituted a fire hazard, was really only suitable for outdoor lighting, and, at the high voltages used, was dangerous to work with. In 1878 inventor Thomas Edison saw a market for a system that could bring electric lighting directly into
640-620: A Brush Electric Company lineman killed in May by the AC line he was cutting. The press in New York seemed to switch overnight from stories about electric lights vs gas lighting to "death by wire" incidents, with each new report seeming to fan public resentment against high voltage AC and the dangerously tangled overhead electrical wires in the city. At this point an electrical engineer named Harold P. Brown , who at that time seemed to have no connection to
768-566: A June 7, 1888 letter, tried to defuse the situation. He invited Edison to visit him in Pittsburgh and said "I believe there has been a systemic attempt on the part of some people to do a great deal of mischief and create as great a difference as possible between the Edison Company and The Westinghouse Electric Co., when there ought to be an entirely different condition of affairs". Edison thanked him but said "My laboratory work consumes
896-500: A New York electrical engineer, claimed the AC-based lighting companies were putting the public at risk using high-voltage systems installed in a slipshod manner. Brown also claimed that alternating current was more dangerous than direct current and tried to prove this by publicly killing animals with both currents, with technical assistance from Edison Electric. The Edison company and Brown colluded further in their parallel goals to limit
1024-410: A November 1886 private letter to Edward Johnson, "Just as certain as death Westinghouse will kill a customer within six months after he puts in a system of any size, He has got a new thing and it will require a great deal of experimenting to get it working practically." Edison seemed to hold a view that the very high voltage used in AC systems was too dangerous and that it would take many years to develop
1152-670: A Westinghouse AC generator for the test. They ended up using Edison's West Orange laboratory for the animal tests. Also in March, Superintendent of Prisons Austin Lathrop asked Brown if he could supply the equipment needed for the executions as well as design the electric chair. Brown turned down the job of designing the chair but did agree to fulfill the contract to supply the necessary electrical equipment. The state refused to pay up front, and Brown apparently turned to Edison Electric as well as Thomson-Houston Electric Company to help obtaining
1280-420: A byproduct of the useful electrical energy produced. The amount of waste heat energy equals or exceeds the amount of energy converted into useful electricity . Gas-fired power plants can achieve as much as 65% conversion efficiency, while coal and oil plants achieve around 30–49%. The waste heat produces a temperature rise in the atmosphere, which is small compared to that produced by greenhouse-gas emissions from
1408-445: A cluster of deaths in New York City in the spring of 1888 related to AC arc lighting set off a media frenzy against the "deadly arc-lighting current" and the seemingly callous lighting companies that used it. These deaths included a 15-year-old boy killed on April 15 by a broken telegraph line that had been energized with alternating current from a United States Illuminating Company line; a clerk killed two weeks later by an AC line; and
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#17327733527871536-512: A court injunction obtained by Western Union. Legislation to give all the utilities 90 days to move their lines into underground conduits supplied by the city was slowly making its way through the government but that was also being fought in court by the United States Illuminating Company, who claimed their AC lines were perfectly safe. As AC systems continued to spread into territories covered by DC systems, with
1664-459: A customer used. In July 1888 Westinghouse paid a substantial amount to license Nikola Tesla 's US patents for a poly-phase AC induction motor and obtained a patent option on Galileo Ferraris' induction motor design. Although the acquisition of a feasible AC motor gave Westinghouse a key patent in building a completely integrated AC system, the general shortage of cash the company was going through by 1890 meant development had to be put on hold for
1792-466: A customer's business or home, a niche not served by arc lighting systems. By 1882 the investor-owned utility Edison Illuminating Company was established in New York City. Edison designed his utility to compete with the then established gas lighting utilities, basing it on a relatively low 110-volt direct current supply to power a high resistance incandescent lamp he had invented for the system. Edison direct current systems would be sold to cities throughout
1920-427: A generator powerful enough to produce power on a commercial scale for industry. In 1878, a hydroelectric power station was designed and built by William, Lord Armstrong at Cragside , England . It used water from lakes on his estate to power Siemens dynamos . The electricity supplied power to lights, heating, produced hot water, ran an elevator as well as labor-saving devices and farm buildings. In January 1882
2048-514: A great deal of effort into developing a lightning arrestor for high-tension power lines as well as a magnetic blowout switch that could shut the system down in a power surge, a safety feature the Westinghouse system did not have. Thomson also worried about what would happen with the equipment after they sold it, assuming customers would follow a risky practice of installing as many lights and generators as they could get away with. He also thought
2176-528: A grocer who sells poison and calls it sugar. 1889 saw another round of deaths attributed to alternating current including a lineman in Buffalo, New York, four linemen in New York City, and a New York fruit merchant who was killed when the display he was using came in contact with an overhead line. NYC Mayor Hugh J. Grant , in a meeting with the Board of Electrical Control and the AC electric companies, rejected
2304-466: A high-voltage AC line. The jolt entered through his bare right hand and exited his left steel studded climbing boot. Feeks was killed almost instantly, his body falling into the tangle of wire, sparking, burning, and smoldering for the better part of an hour while a horrified crowd of thousands gathered below. The source of the power that killed Feeks was not determined although United States Illuminating Company lines ran nearby. Feeks' public death sparked
2432-513: A human being. At their November meeting the committee recommended 3,000 volts although the type of electricity, direct current or alternating current , was not determined. In order to more conclusively prove to the committee that AC was more deadly than DC, Brown contacted Edison Electric Light treasurer Francis S. Hastings to arrange the use of the West Orange laboratory. There on December 5, 1888 Brown set up an experiment with members of
2560-425: A hydroelectric power station water flows through turbines using hydropower to generate hydroelectricity . Power is captured from the gravitational force of water falling through penstocks to water turbines connected to generators . The amount of power available is a combination of height and water flow. A wide range of Dams may be built to raise the water level, and create a lake for storing water . Hydropower
2688-401: A key advantage over direct current with the development of transformers that allowed the voltage to be "stepped up" to much higher transmission voltages and then dropped down to a lower end user voltage for business and residential use. The high voltages allowed a central generating station to supply a large area, up to 7-mile (11 km) long circuits. Westinghouse saw this as a way to build
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#17327733527872816-403: A lower reservoir to an upper reservoir. Because the pumping takes place "off peak", electricity is less valuable than at peak times. This less valuable "spare" electricity comes from uncontrolled wind power and base load power plants such as coal, nuclear and geothermal, which still produce power at night even though demand is very low. During daytime peak demand, when electricity prices are high,
2944-406: A material that enhances the mixing of the upflowing air and the down-flowing water. In areas with restricted water use, a dry cooling tower or directly air-cooled radiators may be necessary, since the cost or environmental consequences of obtaining make-up water for evaporative cooling would be prohibitive. These coolers have lower efficiency and higher energy consumption to drive fans, compared to
3072-470: A meter to allow customers to be billed for energy proportional to consumption, but this meter worked only with direct current. Direct current also worked well with electric motors, an advantage DC held throughout the 1880s. The primary drawback with the Edison direct current system was that it ran at 110 volts from generation to its final destination giving it a relatively short useful transmission range: to keep
3200-467: A new round of people fearing the electric lines over their heads in what has been called the "Electric Wire Panic". The blame seemed to settle on Westinghouse since, Westinghouse having bought many of the lighting companies involved, people assumed Feeks' death was the fault of a Westinghouse subsidiary. Newspapers joined into the public outcry following Feeks' death, pointing out men's lives "were cheaper to this monopoly than insulated wires" and calling for
3328-569: A pipe containing a heat transfer fluid, such as oil. The heated oil is then used to boil water into steam, which turns a turbine that drives an electrical generator. The central tower type of solar thermal power plant uses hundreds or thousands of mirrors, depending on size, to direct sunlight onto a receiver on top of a tower. The heat is used to produce steam to turn turbines that drive electrical generators. Wind turbines can be used to generate electricity in areas with strong, steady winds, sometimes offshore . Many different designs have been used in
3456-592: A power station is nearly the maximum electrical power that the power station can produce. Some power plants are run at almost exactly their rated capacity all the time, as a non-load-following base load power plant , except at times of scheduled or unscheduled maintenance. However, many power plants usually produce much less power than their rated capacity. In some cases a power plant produces much less power than its rated capacity because it uses an intermittent energy source . Operators try to pull maximum available power from such power plants, because their marginal cost
3584-543: A safe and workable system. Safety and avoiding the bad press of killing a customer had been one of the goals in designing his DC system and he worried that a death caused by a mis-installed AC system could hold back the use of electricity in general. Edison's understanding of how AC systems worked seemed to be extensive. He noted what he saw as inefficiencies and that, combined with the capital costs in trying to finance very large generating plants, led him to believe there would be very little cost savings in an AC venture. Edison
3712-559: A series of mergers: Edison Lamp Company , a lamp manufacturer in East Newark , New Jersey; Edison Machine Works , a manufacturer of dynamos and large electric motors in Schenectady, New York ; Bergmann & Company , a manufacturer of electric lighting fixtures , sockets , and other electric lighting devices; and Edison Electric Light Company , the patent -holding company and the financial arm backed by J.P. Morgan and
3840-421: A steam turbine. Bioenergy can also be processed through a range of temperatures and pressures in gasification , pyrolysis or torrefaction reactions. Depending on the desired end product, these reactions create more energy-dense products ( syngas , wood pellets , biocoal ) that can then be fed into an accompanying engine to produce electricity at a much lower emission rate when compared with open burning. It
3968-643: A steam turbine. The combination of a "top" cycle and a "bottom" cycle produces higher overall efficiency than either cycle can attain alone. In 2018, Inter RAO UES and State Grid Archived 21 December 2021 at the Wayback Machine planned to build an 8-GW thermal power plant, which's the largest coal-fired power plant construction project in Russia . A prime mover is a machine that converts energy of various forms into energy of motion. Power plants that can be dispatched (scheduled) to provide energy to
Cul De Sac Power Station - Misplaced Pages Continue
4096-713: A street merchant named William Kemmler , there was a great deal of discussion in the editorial column of the New York Times as to what to call the then-new form of execution. The term " Westinghouse d" was put forward as well as " Gerry cide" (after death penalty commission head Elbridge Gerry ), and " Brown ed". The Times hated the word that was eventually adopted, electrocution , describing it as being pushed forward by "pretentious ignoramuses". One of Edison's lawyers wrote to his colleague expressing an opinion that Edison's preference for dynamort , ampermort and electromort were not good terms but thought Westinghouse d
4224-495: A system include: Non-dispatchable plants include such sources as wind and solar energy; while their long-term contribution to system energy supply is predictable, on a short-term (daily or hourly) base their energy must be used as available since generation cannot be deferred. Contractual arrangements ("take or pay") with independent power producers or system interconnections to other networks may be effectively non-dispatchable. All thermal power plants produce waste heat energy as
4352-421: A truly competitive system instead of simply building another barely competitive DC lighting system using patents just different enough to get around the Edison patents. The Edison DC system of centralized DC plants with their short transmission range also meant there was a patchwork of un-supplied customers between Edison's plants that Westinghouse could easily supply with AC power. In 1885 Westinghouse purchased
4480-682: A turbine is spun creating energy. This method is being specifically studied by the Norwegian utility Statkraft, which has calculated that up to 25 TWh/yr would be available from this process in Norway. Statkraft has built the world's first prototype osmotic power plant on the Oslo fjord which was opened on 24 November 2009. In January 2014, however, Statkraft announced not to continue this pilot. Biomass energy can be produced from combustion of waste green material to heat water into steam and drive
4608-445: A typical wet, evaporative cooling tower. Power plants can use an air-cooled condenser, traditionally in areas with a limited or expensive water supply. Air-cooled condensers serve the same purpose as a cooling tower (heat dissipation) without using water. They consume additional auxiliary power and thus may have a higher carbon footprint compared to a traditional cooling tower. Electric companies often prefer to use cooling water from
4736-495: A while. The difficulties of obtaining funding for such a capital intensive business was becoming a serious problem for the company and 1890 saw the first of several attempts by investor J. P. Morgan to take over Westinghouse Electric. Thomson-Houston was continuing to expand, buying seven smaller electric companies including a purchase of the Brush Electric Company in 1889. By 1890 Thomson-Houston controlled
4864-487: A wide range of frequencies depending on the type of load; lighting load using higher frequencies, and traction systems and heavy motor load systems preferring lower frequencies. The economics of central station generation improved greatly when unified light and power systems, operating at a common frequency, were developed. The same generating plant that fed large industrial loads during the day, could feed commuter railway systems during rush hour and then serve lighting load in
4992-415: Is diesel. This Saint Lucia –related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article about a power station is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Power station Many power stations contain one or more generators , rotating machine that converts mechanical power into three-phase electric power . The relative motion between a magnetic field and
5120-583: Is possible to store energy and produce electrical power at a later time as in pumped-storage hydroelectricity , thermal energy storage , flywheel energy storage , battery storage power station and so on. The world's largest form of storage for excess electricity, pumped-storage is a reversible hydroelectric plant. They are a net consumer of energy but provide storage for any source of electricity, effectively smoothing peaks and troughs in electricity supply and demand. Pumped storage plants typically use "spare" electricity during off peak periods to pump water from
5248-518: Is practically zero, but the available power varies widely—in particular, it may be zero during heavy storms at night. In some cases operators deliberately produce less power for economic reasons. The cost of fuel to run a load following power plant may be relatively high, and the cost of fuel to run a peaking power plant is even higher—they have relatively high marginal costs. Operators keep power plants turned off ("operational reserve") or running at minimum fuel consumption ("spinning reserve") most of
Cul De Sac Power Station - Misplaced Pages Continue
5376-465: Is produced in 150 countries, with the Asia-Pacific region generating 32 percent of global hydropower in 2010. China is the largest hydroelectricity producer, with 721 terawatt-hours of production in 2010, representing around 17 percent of domestic electricity use. Solar energy can be turned into electricity either directly in solar cells , or in a concentrating solar power plant by focusing
5504-410: Is used intermittently (peak load). Steam turbines generally operate at higher efficiency when operated at full capacity. Besides use of reject heat for process or district heating, one way to improve overall efficiency of a power plant is to combine two different thermodynamic cycles in a combined cycle plant. Most commonly, exhaust gases from a gas turbine are used to generate steam for a boiler and
5632-564: The Edison Electric Light Company claimed in early 1888 that high voltages used in an alternating current system were hazardous, and that the design was inferior to, and infringed on the patents behind, their direct current system. In the spring of 1888, a media furor arose over electrical fatalities caused by pole-mounted high-voltage AC lines, attributed to the greed and callousness of the arc lighting companies that operated them. In June of that year Harold P. Brown ,
5760-560: The New York Sun ran a story headlined: " For Shame, Brown! – Disgraceful Facts About the Electric Killing Scheme; Queer Work for a State's Expert; Paid by One Electric Company to Injure Another " The story was based on 45 letters stolen from Brown's office that spelled out Brown's collusion with Thomson-Houston and Edison Electric. The majority of the letters were correspondence between Brown and Thomson-Houston on
5888-760: The Roscoe Wind Farm is the largest onshore wind farm in the world, producing 8000 MW of power, followed by the Zhang Jiakou (3000 MW). As of January 2022, the Hornsea Wind Farm in United Kingdom is the largest offshore wind farm in the world at 1218 MW, followed by Walney Wind Farm in United Kingdom at 1026 MW. In 2021, the worldwide installed capacity of power plants increased by 347 GW. Solar and wind power plant capacities rose by 80% in one year. As of 2022 ,
6016-678: The Thomson-Houston Electric Company of Lynn, Massachusetts (another competitor offering AC- and DC-based systems) had built 22 power stations. Thomson-Houston was expanding their business while trying to avoid patent conflicts with Westinghouse, arranging deals such as coming to agreements over lighting company territory, paying a royalty to use the Stanley AC transformer patent, and allowing Westinghouse to use their Sawyer-Man incandescent bulb patent. Besides Thomson-Houston and Brush there were other competitors at
6144-680: The Vanderbilt family for Edison's lighting experiments, merged. The new company, Edison General Electric Company , was formed in January 1889 with the help of Drexel, Morgan & Co. and Grosvenor Lowrey with Villard as president. It later included the Sprague Electric Railway & Motor Company . Through the fall of 1888 a battle of words with Brown specifically attacking Westinghouse continued to escalate. In November George Westinghouse challenged Brown's assertion in
6272-488: The largest photovoltaic (PV) power plants in the world are led by Bhadla Solar Park in India, rated at 2245 MW. Solar thermal power stations in the U.S. have the following output: Large coal-fired, nuclear, and hydroelectric power stations can generate hundreds of megawatts to multiple gigawatts. Some examples: Gas turbine power plants can generate tens to hundreds of megawatts. Some examples: The rated capacity of
6400-439: The second law of thermodynamics ; therefore, there is always heat lost to the environment. If this loss is employed as useful heat, for industrial processes or district heating , the power plant is referred to as a cogeneration power plant or CHP (combined heat-and-power) plant. In countries where district heating is common, there are dedicated heat plants called heat-only boiler stations . An important class of power stations in
6528-490: The 20th century central stations became larger, using higher steam pressures to provide greater efficiency, and relying on interconnections of multiple generating stations to improve reliability and cost. High-voltage AC transmission allowed hydroelectric power to be conveniently moved from distant waterfalls to city markets. The advent of the steam turbine in central station service, around 1906, allowed great expansion of generating capacity. Generators were no longer limited by
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#17327733527876656-510: The AC used was half the voltage used in the power lines over the streets of American cities. Westinghouse criticized these tests as a skewed self-serving demonstration designed to be a direct attack on alternating current. On December 13 in a letter to the New York Times , Westinghouse spelled out where Brown's experiments were wrong and claimed again that Brown was being employed by the Edison company. Brown's December 18 letter refuted
6784-649: The Buffalo ASPCA , electrocuting hundreds of stray dogs, to come up with a method to euthanize animals via electricity. Southwick's 1882 and 1883 articles on how electrocution could be a replacement for hanging , using a restraint similar to a dental chair (an electric chair ) caught the attention of New York State politicians who, following a series of botched hangings, were desperately seeking an alternative. An 1886 commission appointed by New York governor David B. Hill , which including Southwick, recommended in 1888 that executions be carried out by electricity using
6912-572: The Drakensberg, Ingula Pumped Storage Scheme . The power generated by a power station is measured in multiples of the watt , typically megawatts (10 watts) or gigawatts (10 watts). Power stations vary greatly in capacity depending on the type of power plant and on historical, geographical and economic factors. The following examples offer a sense of the scale. Many of the largest operational onshore wind farms are located in China. As of 2022,
7040-484: The Edison company, sent a June 5, 1888 letter to the editor of the New York Post claiming the root of the problem was the alternating current (AC) system being used. Brown argued that the AC system was inherently dangerous and "damnable" and asked why the "public must submit to constant danger from sudden death" just so utilities could use a cheaper AC system. At the beginning of attacks on AC, Westinghouse, in
7168-451: The Edison system was faced with new competition: an alternating current system initially introduced by George Westinghouse 's company that used transformers to step down from a high voltage so AC could be used for indoor lighting. Using high voltage allowed an AC system to transmit power over longer distances from more efficient large central generating stations. As the use of AC spread rapidly with other companies deploying their own systems,
7296-622: The Medico-Legal Society formed their committee in September 1888 chairman Frederick Peterson , who had been an assistant at Brown's July 1888 public electrocution of dogs with AC at Columbia College, had the results of those experiments submitted to the committee. The claims that AC was more deadly than DC and was the best current to use was questioned, with some committee members pointing out that Brown's experiments were not scientifically carried out and were on animals smaller than
7424-493: The Middle East uses by-product heat for the desalination of water. The efficiency of a thermal power cycle is limited by the maximum working fluid temperature produced. The efficiency is not directly a function of the fuel used. For the same steam conditions, coal-, nuclear- and gas power plants all have the same theoretical efficiency. Overall, if a system is on constantly (base load) it will be more efficient than one that
7552-679: The US patents rights to a transformer developed by French engineer Lucien Gaulard (financed by British engineer John Dixon Gibbs ). He imported several of these "Gaulard–Gibbs" transformers as well as Siemens AC generators to begin experimenting with an AC-based lighting system in Pittsburgh . That same year William Stanley used the Gaulard-Gibbs design and designs from the Hungarian Ganz company 's Z.B.D. transformer to develop
7680-416: The United States Illuminating Company in 1890, giving Westinghouse their own arc lighting systems as well as control over all the major incandescent lamp patents not controlled by Edison. In April 1888 Westinghouse engineer Oliver B. Shallenberger developed an induction meter that used a rotating magnetic field for measuring alternating current , giving the company a way to calculate how much electricity
7808-629: The United States, Ferranti and Charles Hesterman Merz in UK, and many others . 2021 world electricity generation by source. Total generation was 28 petawatt-hours . In thermal power stations, mechanical power is produced by a heat engine that transforms thermal energy , often from combustion of a fuel , into rotational energy. Most thermal power stations produce steam, so they are sometimes called steam power stations. Not all thermal energy can be transformed into mechanical power, according to
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#17327733527877936-568: The United States, making it a standard with Edison controlling all technical development and holding all the key patents. Direct current worked well with incandescent lamps, which were the principal load of the day. Direct-current systems could be directly used with storage batteries, providing valuable load-leveling and backup power during interruptions of generator operation. Direct-current generators could be easily paralleled, allowing economical operation by using smaller machines during periods of light load and improving reliability. Edison had invented
8064-484: The Westinghouse generators; he did not want his company's equipment to be associated with the death penalty and he wanted to use one to prove a point, paying Brown to set up a public efficiency test to show that Westinghouse's sales claim of manufacturing 50% more efficient generators was false. That spring Brown published "The Comparative Danger to Life of the Alternating and Continuous Electrical Current" detailing
8192-404: The animal experiments done at Edison's lab and claiming they showed AC was far deadlier than DC. This 61-page professionally printed booklet (possibly paid for by the Edison company) was sent to government officials, newspapers, and businessmen in towns with populations greater than 5,000 inhabitants. In May 1889 when New York had its first criminal sentenced to be executed in the electric chair,
8320-464: The bid to supply electrical power for the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893 and won the major part of the contract to build Niagara Falls hydroelectric project later that year (partially splitting the contract with General Electric). DC commercial power distribution systems declined rapidly in numbers throughout the 20th century; the last DC utility in New York City was shut down in 2007. The war of
8448-503: The board, with people pointing out he was showing no scientific evidence that AC was more dangerous than DC. Westinghouse pointed out in letters to various newspapers the number of fires caused by DC equipment and suggested that Brown was obviously being controlled by Edison, something Brown continually denied. A July edition of The Electrical Journal covered Brown's appearance before the New York Board of Electrical Control and
8576-482: The case but did have connection to the Westinghouse company, obviously paying for his services. During fact-finding hearings held around the state beginning on July 9 in New York City, Cockran used his considerable skills as a cross-examiner and orator to attack Brown, Edison, and their supporters. His strategy was to show that Brown had falsified his test on the killing power of AC and to prove that electricity would not cause certain death and simply lead to torturing
8704-414: The chair was first used, on August 6, 1890, the technicians on hand misjudged the voltage needed to kill William Kemmler. After the first jolt of electricity Kemmler was found to be still breathing. The procedure had to be repeated and a reporter on hand described it as "an awful spectacle, far worse than hanging." George Westinghouse commented: "They would have done better using an axe." On August 25, 1889
8832-539: The claims and Brown even challenged Westinghouse to an electrical duel, with Brown agreeing to be shocked by ever-increasing amounts of DC power if Westinghouse submitted himself to the same amount of increasing AC power, first to quit loses. Westinghouse declined the offer. In March 1889 when members of the Medico-Legal Society embarked on another series of tests to work out the details of electrode composition and placement they turned to Brown for technical assistance. Edison treasurer Hastings tried unsuccessfully to obtain
8960-453: The claims that the AC lines were perfectly safe saying "we get news of all who touch them through the coroners office". On October 11, 1889, John Feeks, a Western Union lineman, was high up in the tangle of overhead electrical wires working on what were supposed to be low-voltage telegraph lines in a busy Manhattan district. As the lunchtime crowd below looked on he grabbed a nearby line that, unknown to him, had been shorted many blocks away with
9088-561: The companies seeming to impinge on Edison patents including incandescent lighting, things got worse for the company. The price of copper was rising, adding to the expense of Edison's low voltage DC system, which required much heavier copper wires than higher voltage AC systems. Thomas Edison's own colleagues and engineers were trying to get him to consider AC. Edison's sales force was continually losing bids in municipalities that opted for cheaper AC systems and Edison Electric Illuminating Company president Edward Hibberd Johnson pointed out that if
9216-466: The company stuck with an all DC system it would not be able to do business in small towns and even mid-sized cities. Edison Electric had a patent option on the ZBD transformer , and a 1886 confidential in-house report by electrical engineer Frank Sprague had recommended that the company go AC, but Thomas Edison was against the idea. After Westinghouse installed his first large scale system, Edison wrote in
9344-479: The competitors were infringing on Edison's incandescent light and other electrical patents. It warned that purchasers could find themselves on the losing side of a court case if those patents were upheld. The pamphlet also emphasized the safety and efficiency of direct current, with the claim DC had not caused a single death, and included newspaper stories of accidental electrocutions caused by alternating current. As arc lighting systems spread, so did stories of how
9472-429: The condemned. In cross examination he questioned Brown's lack of credentials in the electrical field and brought up possible collusion between Brown and Edison, which Brown again denied. Many witnesses were called by both sides to give firsthand anecdotal accounts about encounters with electricity and evidence was given by medical professionals on the human body's nervous system and the electrical conductivity of skin. Brown
9600-496: The cooling machinery. These screens are only partially effective and as a result billions of fish and other aquatic organisms are killed by power plants each year. For example, the cooling system at the Indian Point Energy Center in New York kills over a billion fish eggs and larvae annually. A further environmental impact is that aquatic organisms which adapt to the warmer discharge water may be injured if
9728-474: The currents The war of the currents was a series of events surrounding the introduction of competing electric power transmission systems in the late 1880s and early 1890s. It grew out of two lighting systems developed in the late 1870s and early 1880s; arc lamp street lighting running on high-voltage alternating current (AC), and large-scale low-voltage direct current (DC) indoor incandescent lighting being marketed by Thomas Edison 's company. In 1886,
9856-490: The currents grew out of the development of two lighting systems; arc lighting running on alternating current and incandescent lighting running on direct current. Both were supplanting gas lighting systems, with arc lighting taking over large area/street lighting, and incandescent lighting replacing gas for business and residential indoor lighting. By the late 1870s, arc lamp systems were beginning to be installed in cities, powered by central generating plants. Arc lighting
9984-624: The dangers of AC. Some of this collusion was exposed in letters stolen from Brown's office and published in August 1889. During this period Westinghouse continued to pour money and engineering resources into the goal of building a completely integrated AC system. To gain control of the Sawyer-Man lamp patents he bought Consolidated Electric Light in 1887. He bought the Waterhouse Electric Light Company in 1888 and
10112-514: The debate in technical societies over the merits of DC and AC, noting that: The battle of the currents is being fought this week in New York. At a July meeting Board of Electrical Control, Brown's criticisms of AC and even his knowledge of electricity was challenged by other electrical engineers, some of whom worked for Westinghouse. At this meeting, supporters of AC provided anecdotal stories from electricians on how they had survived shocks from AC at voltages up to 1000 volts and argued that DC
10240-561: The dog survived. Brown then applied 330 volts of alternating current which killed the dog. Four days later he held a second demonstration to answer critics' claims that the DC probably weakened the dog before it died. In this second demonstration, three dogs were killed in quick succession with 300 volts of AC. Brown wrote to a colleague that he was sure this demonstration would get the New York Board of Electrical Control to limit AC installations to 300 volts. Brown's campaign to restrict AC to 300 volts
10368-429: The electric chair. There were early indications that this new form of execution would become mixed up with the war of currents. As part of their fact-finding , the commission sent out surveys to hundreds of experts on law and medicine, seeking their opinions, as well as contacting electrical experts, including Elihu Thomson and Thomas Edison. In late 1887, when death penalty commission member Southwick contacted Edison,
10496-468: The end of 1887 the mishmash of overhead wires for telephone, telegraph, fire and burglar alarm systems in Manhattan were now mixed with haphazardly strung AC lighting system wires carrying up to 6,000 volts. Insulation on power lines was rudimentary, with one electrician referring to it as having as much value "as a molasses covered rag", and exposure to the elements was eroding it over time. A third of
10624-411: The energy carried by ocean waves , tides , salinity , and ocean temperature differences . The movement of water in the world's oceans creates a vast store of kinetic energy , or energy in motion. This energy can be harnessed to generate electricity to power homes, transport and industries. The term marine energy encompasses both wave power —power from surface waves, and tidal power —obtained from
10752-432: The equipment. This became another behind-the-scenes maneuver to acquire Westinghouse AC generators to supply the current, apparently with the help of the Edison company and Westinghouse's chief AC rival, Thomson-Houston. Thomson-Houston arranged to acquire three Westinghouse AC generators by replacing them with new Thomson-Houston AC generators. Thomson-Houston president Charles Coffin had at least two reasons for obtaining
10880-409: The evening, thus improving the system load factor and reducing the cost of electrical energy overall. Many exceptions existed, generating stations were dedicated to power or light by the choice of frequency, and rotating frequency changers and rotating converters were particularly common to feed electric railway systems from the general lighting and power network. Throughout the first few decades of
11008-460: The execution by electricity bill passed in June 1888, Edison was asked by a New York government official what means would be the best way to implement the state's new form of execution. "Hire out your criminals as linemen to the New York electric lighting companies" was Edison's tongue-in-cheek answer. As the number of deaths attributed to high voltage lighting around the country continued to mount,
11136-463: The executives of AC companies to be charged with manslaughter . The October 13, 1889, New Orleans Times-Picayune noted "Death does not stop at the door, but comes right into the house, and perhaps as you are closing a door or turning on the gas you are killed." Harold Brown's reputation was rehabilitated almost overnight with newspapers and magazines seeking his opinion and reporters following him around New York City where he measured how much current
11264-484: The first practical transformer. The Westinghouse Electric Company was formed at the beginning of 1886. In March 1886 Stanley, with Westinghouse's backing, installed the first multiple-voltage AC power system, a demonstration incandescent lighting system, in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Expanded to the point where it could light 23 businesses along main street with very little power loss over 4000 feet,
11392-403: The high voltages involved were killing people, usually unwary linemen, a strange new phenomenon that seemed to instantaneously strike a victim dead. One such story in 1881 of a drunken dock worker dying after he grabbed a large electric dynamo led Buffalo, New York dentist Alfred P. Southwick to seek some application for the curious phenomenon. He worked with local physician George E. Fell and
11520-425: The idea of using AC lighting in residential homes was too dangerous and had the company hold back on that type of installation until a safer transformer could be developed. Due to the hazards presented by high voltage electrical lines most European cities and the city of Chicago in the US required them to be buried underground. The City of New York did not require burying and had little in the way of regulation so by
11648-458: The inventor stated he was against capital punishment and wanted nothing to do with the matter. After further prompting, Edison hit out at his chief electric power competitor, George Westinghouse, in what may have been the opening salvo in the war of currents, stating in a December 1887 letter to Southwick that it would be best to use current generated by "'alternating machines,' manufactured principally in this country by Geo. Westinghouse". Soon after
11776-406: The kinetic energy of large bodies of moving water. Offshore wind power is not a form of marine energy, as wind power is derived from the wind , even if the wind turbines are placed over water. The oceans have a tremendous amount of energy and are close to many if not most concentrated populations. Ocean energy has the potential of providing a substantial amount of new renewable energy around
11904-491: The largest power plants terawatt-hours (TW·h). It includes the electricity used in the plant auxiliaries and in the transformers. Net generation is the amount of electricity generated by a power plant that is transmitted and distributed for consumer use. Net generation is less than the total gross power generation as some power produced is consumed within the plant itself to power auxiliary equipment such as pumps , motors and pollution control devices. Thus War of
12032-466: The legislators in the state of Missouri (at the company's expense), Brown requesting that a letter of recommendation from Thomas Edison be sent to Scranton, Pennsylvania, as well as Edison and Arthur Kennelly coaching Brown in his upcoming testimony in the Kemmler appeal trial. Brown was not slowed down by this revelation and characterized his efforts to expose Westinghouse as the same as going after
12160-425: The light to run a heat engine. A solar photovoltaic power plant converts sunlight into direct current electricity using the photoelectric effect . Inverters change the direct current into alternating current for connection to the electrical grid. This type of plant does not use rotating machines for energy conversion. Solar thermal power plants use either parabolic troughs or heliostats to direct sunlight onto
12288-472: The majority of the arc lighting systems in the US and a collection of its own US AC patents. Several of the business deals between Thomson-Houston and Westinghouse fell apart and in April 1888 a judge rolled back part of Westinghouse's original Gaulard Gibbs patent, stating it only covered transformers linked in series. With the help of the financier Henry Villard the Edison group of companies also went through
12416-479: The ocean or a lake, river, or cooling pond instead of a cooling tower. This single pass or once-through cooling system can save the cost of a cooling tower and may have lower energy costs for pumping cooling water through the plant's heat exchangers . However, the waste heat can cause thermal pollution as the water is discharged. Power plants using natural bodies of water for cooling are designed with mechanisms such as fish screens , to limit intake of organisms into
12544-491: The often contradictory testimony was raising public doubts about the electrocution law but after Edison took the stand many accepted assurances from the "wizard of Menlo Park" that 1,000 volts of AC would easily kill any man. After the gathered testimony was submitted and the two sides presented their case, Judge Edwin Day ruled against Kemmler's appeal on October 9 and US Supreme Court denied Kemmler's appeal on May 23, 1890. When
12672-532: The other AC companies in retaliation for what Hastings thought were unscrupulous bids by Westinghouse for lighting contracts in Denver and Minneapolis . Hasting brought Brown and Edison together and was in continual contact with Brown. Edison Electric seemed to be footing the bill for some of Brown's publications on the dangers of AC. In addition, Thomas Edison himself sent a letter to the city government of Scranton, Pennsylvania recommending Brown as an expert on
12800-684: The pages of the Electrical Engineer that the Westinghouse AC systems had caused 30 deaths. The magazine investigated the claim and found at most only two of the deaths could be attributed to Westinghouse installations. Although New York had a criminal procedure code that specified electrocution via an electric chair, it did not spell out the type of electricity, the amount of current, or its method of supply, since these were still relative unknowns. The New York Medico-Legal Society, an informal society composed of doctors and lawyers,
12928-557: The past, but almost all modern turbines being produced today use a three-bladed, upwind design. Grid-connected wind turbines now being built are much larger than the units installed during the 1970s. They thus produce power more cheaply and reliably than earlier models. With larger turbines (on the order of one megawatt), the blades move more slowly than older, smaller, units, which makes them less visually distracting and safer for birds. Marine energy or marine power (also sometimes referred to as ocean energy or ocean power ) refers to
13056-674: The plant shuts down in cold weather . Water consumption by power stations is a developing issue. In recent years, recycled wastewater, or grey water , has been used in cooling towers. The Calpine Riverside and the Calpine Fox power stations in Wisconsin as well as the Calpine Mankato power station in Minnesota are among these facilities. Power stations can generate electrical energy from renewable energy sources. In
13184-406: The power themselves, in which case the generation output is classified into gross generation , and net generation . Gross generation or gross electric output is the total amount of electricity generated by a power plant over a specific period of time. It is measured at the generating terminal and is measured in kilowatt-hours (kW·h), megawatt-hours (MW·h), gigawatt-hours (GW·h) or for
13312-559: The power transmission of belts or the relatively slow speed of reciprocating engines, and could grow to enormous sizes. For example, Sebastian Ziani de Ferranti planned what would have reciprocating steam engine ever built for a proposed new central station, but scrapped the plans when turbines became available in the necessary size. Building power systems out of central stations required combinations of engineering skill and financial acumen in equal measure. Pioneers of central station generation include George Westinghouse and Samuel Insull in
13440-449: The press, members of the Medico-Legal Society, the chairman of the death penalty commission, and Thomas Edison looking on. Brown used alternating current for all of his tests on animals larger than a human, including 4 calves and a lame horse, all dispatched with 750 volts of AC. Based on these results the Medico-Legal Society's December meeting recommended the use of 1,000–1,500 volts of alternating current for executions and newspapers noted
13568-728: The road, which was the monopoly of the gas companies. The customers included the City Temple and the Old Bailey . Another important customer was the Telegraph Office of the General Post Office , but this could not be reached through the culverts. Johnson arranged for the supply cable to be run overhead, via Holborn Tavern and Newgate . In September 1882 in New York, the Pearl Street Station
13696-777: The same power plant. Natural draft wet cooling towers at many nuclear power plants and large fossil-fuel-fired power plants use large hyperboloid chimney -like structures (as seen in the image at the right) that release the waste heat to the ambient atmosphere by the evaporation of water. However, the mechanical induced-draft or forced-draft wet cooling towers in many large thermal power plants, nuclear power plants, fossil-fired power plants, petroleum refineries , petrochemical plants , geothermal , biomass and waste-to-energy plants use fans to provide air movement upward through down coming water and are not hyperboloid chimney-like structures. The induced or forced-draft cooling towers are typically rectangular, box-like structures filled with
13824-571: The size of the expensive copper conductors down generating plants had to be situated in the middle of population centers and could only supply customers less than a mile from the plant. In 1884 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania inventor and entrepreneur George Westinghouse entered the electric lighting business when he started to develop a DC system and hired William Stanley, Jr. to work on it. In 1885 he read an article in UK technical journal Engineering that described alternating current systems under development. By that time alternating current had gained
13952-512: The storage is used for peaking power , where water in the upper reservoir is allowed to flow back to a lower reservoir through a turbine and generator. Unlike coal power stations, which can take more than 12 hours to start up from cold, a hydroelectric generator can be brought into service in a few minutes, ideal to meet a peak load demand. Two substantial pumped storage schemes are in South Africa, Palmiet Pumped Storage Scheme and another in
14080-406: The street for his experiments with direct and alternating current. After much experimentation killing a series of dogs, Brown held a public demonstration on July 30 in a lecture room at Columbia College . With many participants shouting for the demonstration to stop and others walking out, Brown subjected a caged dog to several shocks with increasing levels of direct current up to 1,000 volts, which
14208-477: The system used transformers to step 500 AC volts at the street down to 100 volts to power incandescent lamps at each location. By fall of 1886 Westinghouse, Stanley, and Oliver B. Shallenberger had built the first commercial AC power system in the US in Buffalo, New York . By the end of 1887 Westinghouse had 68 alternating current power stations to Edison's 121 DC-based stations. To make matters worse for Edison,
14336-425: The systems they were building. Mergers reduced competition between companies, including the merger of Edison Electric with their largest competitor, Thomson-Houston, forming General Electric in 1892. Edison Electric's merger with their chief alternating current rival brought an end to the war of the currents and created a new company that now controlled three quarters of the US electrical business. Westinghouse won
14464-582: The time, including the United States Illuminating Company and the Waterhouse Electric Light Company . All of the companies had their own electric power systems, arc lighting systems, and even incandescent lamp designs for domestic lighting, leading to constant lawsuits and patent battles between themselves and with Edison. Elihu Thomson of Thomson-Houston was concerned about AC safety and put
14592-448: The time. Operators feed more fuel into load following power plants only when the demand rises above what lower-cost plants (i.e., intermittent and base load plants) can produce, and then feed more fuel into peaking power plants only when the demand rises faster than the load following power plants can follow. Not all of the generated power of a plant is necessarily delivered into a distribution system. Power plants typically also use some of
14720-402: The topic of acquiring the three Westinghouse generators for the state of New York as well as using one of them in an efficiency test. They also showed that Brown had received $ 5,000 from Edison Electric to purchase the surplus Westinghouse generators from Thomson-Houston. Further Edison involvement was contained in letters from Edison treasurer Hastings asking Brown to send anti-AC pamphlets to all
14848-537: The use of AC with attempts to push through legislation to severely limit AC installations and voltages. Both also colluded with Westinghouse's chief AC rival, the Thomson-Houston Electric Company , to make sure the first electric chair was powered by a Westinghouse AC generator. By the early 1890s, the war was winding down. Further deaths caused by AC lines in New York City forced electric companies to fix safety problems. Thomas Edison no longer controlled Edison Electric, and subsidiary companies were beginning to add AC to
14976-402: The whole of my time". On June 8, Brown was lobbying in person before the New York Board of Electrical Control, asking that his letter to the paper be read into the meeting's record and demanding severe regulations on AC including limiting voltage to 300 volts, a level that would make AC next to useless for transmission. There were many rebuttals to Brown's claims in the newspapers and letters to
15104-473: The wires were simply abandoned by defunct companies and slowly deteriorating, causing damage to, and shorting out the other lines. Besides being an eyesore , New Yorkers were annoyed when a large March 1888 snowstorm (the Great Blizzard of 1888 ) tore down a large number of the lines, cutting off utilities in the city. This spurred on the idea of having these lines moved underground but it was stopped by
15232-565: The world's first public coal-fired power station , the Edison Electric Light Station , was built in London, a project of Thomas Edison organized by Edward Johnson . A Babcock & Wilcox boiler powered a 93 kW (125 horsepower) steam engine that drove a 27-tonne (27-long-ton) generator. This supplied electricity to premises in the area that could be reached through the culverts of the viaduct without digging up
15360-415: The world. Salinity gradient energy is called pressure-retarded osmosis. In this method, seawater is pumped into a pressure chamber that is at a pressure lower than the difference between the pressures of saline water and fresh water. Freshwater is also pumped into the pressure chamber through a membrane, which increases both the volume and pressure of the chamber. As the pressure differences are compensated,
15488-408: Was accused of fudging his tests on animals, hiding the fact that he was using lower current DC and high-current AC. When the hearing convened for a day at Edison's West Orange lab to witness demonstrations of skin resistance to electricity, Brown almost got in a fight with a Westinghouse representative, accusing him of being in the Edison laboratory to conduct industrial espionage . Newspapers noted
15616-643: Was also of the opinion that DC was a superior system (a fact that he was sure the public would come to recognize) and inferior AC technology was being used by other companies as a way to get around his DC patents. In February 1888 Edison Electric president Edward Johnson published an 84-page pamphlet titled " A Warning from the Edison Electric Light Company " and sent it to newspapers and to companies that had purchased or were planning to purchase electrical equipment from Edison competitors, including Westinghouse and Thomson-Houston, stating that
15744-548: Was capable of lighting streets, factory yards, or the interior of large buildings. Arc lamp systems used high voltages (above 3,000 volts) to supply current to multiple series-connected lamps, and some ran better on alternating current. 1880 saw the installation of large-scale arc lighting systems in several US cities including a central station set up by the Brush Electric Company in December 1880 to supply
15872-406: Was established by Edison to provide electric lighting in the lower Manhattan Island area. The station ran until destroyed by fire in 1890. The station used reciprocating steam engines to turn direct-current generators. Because of the DC distribution, the service area was small, limited by voltage drop in the feeders. In 1886 George Westinghouse began building an alternating current system that used
16000-415: Was given the task of working out the details and in late 1888 through early 1889 conducted a series of animal experiments on voltage amounts, electrode design and placement, and skin conductivity. During this time they sought the advice of Harold Brown as a consultant. This ended up expanding the war of currents into the development of the chair and the general debate over capital punishment in the US. After
16128-444: Was the best choice. William Kemmler was sentenced to die in the electric chair around June 24, 1889, but before the sentence could be carried out an appeal was filed on the grounds that it constituted cruel and unusual punishment under the U.S. Constitution. It became obvious to the press and everyone involved that the politically connected (and expensive) lawyer who filed the appeal, William Bourke Cockran , had no connection to
16256-511: Was the more dangerous of the two. Brown, determined to prove alternating current was more dangerous than direct current, at some point contacted Thomas Edison to see if he could make use of equipment to conduct experiments. Edison immediately offered to assist Brown in his crusade against AC companies. Before long, Brown was loaned space and equipment at Edison's West Orange, New Jersey laboratory, as well as laboratory assistant Arthur Kennelly . Brown paid local children to collect stray dogs off
16384-512: Was unsuccessful but legislation did come close to passing in Ohio and Virginia. What brought Brown to the forefront of the debate over AC and his motives remain unclear, but historians note there grew to be some form of collusion between the Edison company and Brown. Edison records seem to show it was Edison Electric Light treasurer Francis S. Hastings who came up with the idea of using Brown and several New York physicians to attack Westinghouse and
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