NYC
unplugs
Edison's
direct current service
New
York City
November 15, 2007
The city that Thomas Edison electrified 125 years ago has completed
the transition from direct to alternating current, helping to finally
erase a feud between three giants of invention. In the so-called "war
of currents," Edison feuded with Tesla and George Westinghouse
over which transmission method to adopt.
The Consolidated Edison utility pulled the plug of direct current service
with electric operations manager Fred Simms, a Con Ed employee for 52
years, cutting a ceremonial cable at 10 East 40th Street, NYC.
The change means that Con Ed now exclusively uses the alternating current
system invented by Nikola Tesla. The utility is named for Edison, whose
Pearl Street Station in Manhattan was the nation's first central electrical
power plant, serving 59 customers with direct current beginning in 1882.
Alternating current proved superior as transformers allowed electricity
to travel over long distance wires. Direct current has taken decades
to faze out of Manhattan because the early backbone of New York's electricity
grid was built by Edison's company, which had a running head start in
the first decade before Tesla and Westinghouse demonstrated the potential
of alternating current with the Niagara Falls power project.
As
AC gained prevalence over DC worldwide, Con Ed froze the development
of the DC system in 1928, but until now, continued to supply New York's
major DC customers with the existing system.
More
more information, please visit the following websites:
AC,
DC and Electrical Signals
War of Currents from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Electricity
and its Development at Niagara Falls
PBS:
Tesla- Life and Legacy- Harnessing Niagara
George Westinghouse Museum-
The man, inventor and entrepreneur
George
Westinghouse-
The history of electricity
Nikola
Tesla: The Genius Who Lit the World-
from the
Tesla Memorial Society of New York
Nikola
Tesla Museum
The
Edison Papers
Thomas
Edison: Scientist and Inventor
