The influence of James Watt on the central station industry

Abstract

WITH the conception and installation of the Pearl Street station in September 1882 in New York, the electric light and power industry became a fact, and from such small beginnings a mighty industry has developed. Afew weeks later the Appleton, Wisconsin, plant was started. The Appleton generators were driven by a waterwheel, and its successors using the sameprime mover dominate about a third of the central station industry. But Mr. Edison with a conception of a universal system of light and power supply saw with clear vision the possibilities of the steam engine as a primemover, and located his generating stations as nearly as possible in the center of distribution… independent of weather or rainfall or the presence of flowing water, he chose and adopted for his purposes the steam engine which Newcomen had invented and James Watt had perfected and adaptedto the transmission of power through a rotating shaft.