history

Carl L. Sulzberger

triumph of ac, part 2

the battle of the currents

THIS IS THE SECOND PART OF A

two-part article on the early development of electric power systems and the
competition between advocates of direct
current (dc) and of alternating current
(ac) for the generation, transmission,
distribution, and utilization of electrical
energy. The first part appeared in the
May/June issue and discussed the invention of the practical incandescent light;
the development, chiefly by Thomas
Edison, of low-voltage dc power systems; and the work of Nicola Tesla,
William Stanley, George Westinghouse,
and others in Europe and in North
America that led to the advent of ac
power systems. This second part of the
article discusses what became known as
the battle of the currents.

Westinghouse AC
Power Systems
The seven U.S. patent applications filed by Nicola Tesla
in late 1887 comprised a
comprehensive ac system of
generators,
transformers,
transmission lines, polyphase
motors, and lighting. When
the enterprising Pittsburgh
industrialist George Westinghouse, recognizing the value
of Teslas work, purchased
the seven patents and
employed Tesla to further
develop ac power systems,
the Westinghouse Electric
Company equipped itself to
manufacture and market
advanced, complete ac power
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IEEE power & energy magazine

systems. This set the stage for an industrial war to determine whether Edisons
dc or Westinghouses ac would be the
electric supply technology to power the
massive industrial development that
began in the last years of the 19th century and continues to the present.

the suitability of dc for battery

charging and electroplating
applications
the perceived absolute safety
of 110- and 240-volt dc as compared to the higher ac transmission and distribution voltages.

The Battle of the Currents

In 1888, Oliver B. Shallenberger, a

Westinghouse staff engineer, developed
a magnetic disk meter for ac power. This
direct-reading meter was superior to the
electrolytic meter used by Edison in his
superior reliability since dc generdc system and defeated one of the arguators could work in parallel, a ments of the dc advocates. Further, while
technique not then available for ac it took the Westinghouse engineering
the lack of an ac energy meter
team until 1892 to perfect Teslas ac
the lack of an ac motor
induction motor and to fully develop
two- and three-phase systems for transmitting and
distributing ac power, the
progress made eliminated
Edisons claim of a lack of
an ac motor.
In the summer of 1888,
the Edison interests concentrated their efforts on the
claimed unsafe nature of ac.
Harold P. Brown, a selftaught engineer assuming
the
title
professor,
appeared as a supposed
advocate for public safety. It
is now apparent that he
received some help and
encouragement from the dc
proponents. As part of his
effort, Brown appeared
before audiences in Virginia
George Westinghouse. (Photo courtesy of Westinghouse.)
and Ohio and electrocuted
When the Edison companies took the
offensive in 1888, they identified the
advantages of dc as the following:

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animals to demonstrate
the effects of ac. He
also urged the New
York Board of Electrical Control to prohibit
ac voltages of more
than 300 V. While
maintaining that lowvoltage dc was perfectly
safe, he condemned ac
voltages over 300 V as
being damnable. Edison himself spoke in
favor of banning the use
of ac altogether or at
least limiting voltages
to no more than 300 V.
At about the same
time, Brown was instrumental in causing New
York State to replace
hanging with electrocution by ac as its method
of carrying out capital
punishment. While it
was argued that electrocution would be painless and instant because
electric energy travels at
the speed of light, it was
not known how high a
voltage or current was
needed to kill or the
mechanism and speed
of electricity passing through a human
body. One of the first electric chairs was
installed at the Auburn State Prison in
upstate New York. It utilized a used Westinghouse
generator
clandestinely
acquired by Brown with the financial
backing of the Edison interests. Westinghouse would not willingly or knowingly
supply the generators for the New York
electric chairs. The first electrocution,
that of convicted axe-murderer William
Kemmler, was conducted on 6 August
1890. Because of poor voltage regulation, the execution was reportedly a grisly affair. Kemmler was first subjected to
1,300 V ac for a period of 17 seconds.
When it was discovered that he was still
alive, he was then administered about
2,000 V ac until his body began to smolder and burn. This second charge proved
lethal. Westinghousing was suggested

Westinghouse had made history by installing a

13-mile long ac transmission line in Oregon from
waterwheel driven single-phase generators at
Willamette Falls to the City of Portland.

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The 3-kV transmission line, left, and the ac

generator, above, used to supply power to
the Gold King Ore Mill, Telluride, Colorado,
as they appeared in the early 1890s.

as a synonym for electrocution, but the

term did not stick.
By 1891, the claim of the Edison
interests that dc is inherently safer than
ac had subsided. George Westinghouse
would later recall:
I remember Tom [Edison]
telling them that dc was like a
river flowing peacefully to the
sea, while ac was like a torrent
rushing violently over a precipice.
Imagine that! Why they even had
a professor named Harold Brown
who went around talking to audiences and electrocuting dogs
and old horses right on stage, to
show how dangerous ac was.
In the meantime, Westinghouse had
made history by installing a 13-mile long

ac transmission line in Oregon from

waterwheel driven single-phase generators at Willamette Falls to the City of
Portland. This line operated at 4 kV. The
first industrial use of ac transmission
took place in 1891 when Westinghouse
installed a 3-kV single-phase line
approximately three miles from a waterwheel generator to the Gold King Ore
Mill in Telluride, Colorado, at an elevation of over 9,000 feet. The ore crusher
was powered by a 100-horsepower synchronous motor. The opportunity for
electric power in the Telluride application arose from the lack of firewood
above the timberline and the high cost to
transport coal for making steam power to
this remote location. The Telluride
installation has been designated an IEEE
Milestone. This program recognizes,
commemorates, and publicizes historiIEEE power & energy magazine

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cally significant electrical engineering

achievements. The year 1891 also saw
the installation of a 100-mile long ac line
from Lauffen to Frankfurt, Germany.
This three-phase line operated at 30 kV
and was installed by the Oerlikon Company. In 1892, a 40-kV ac transmission
line was built a distance of 70 miles from
a remote hydroelectric generating station
to Sacramento, California.
Edisons firm, The Edison General
Electric Company, held valuable lamp
patents but had no participation in or
access to the ac equipment market. The
Thomson-Houston Company had long
participated in the development of ac
technology and the manufacture of ac
equipment. Business sense prevailed, and
these two companies merged in 1892 to
form the General Electric Company. Edison was reportedly unhappy that his
name was not included in the name of the
new company. General Electric actively
and immediately entered the ac
manufacturing and installation
business. Edison was named a
director of the merged company,
but he did not take an active part
and resigned after a time.
After launching an industry
that essentially ushered in the
20th century and created the modern world, Edison exerted little
further influence in the electric
power field. Rather, he turned his
far-ranging inventive genius to a
number of other fields, most
notably the invention, development, and commercialization of
motion picture and storage battery
technologies and the further perfection of the phonograph. It is
noteworthy that the man who labored
long and hard to develop a successful
high-resistance lamp filament to reduce
line losses so vigorously resisted the
advent of ac and high transmission and
distribution voltages, the very means by
which line losses could be effectively
reduced.

Polyphase AC Systems
Come of Age
As the battle of the currents cooled in
the early 1890s, Westinghouse continued
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IEEE power & energy magazine

to develop Teslas polyphase system

technology. One important development
was the production of a rotating magnetic field for the induction motor by coupling two single-phase alternators on a
single shaft with the field windings displaced by 90 degrees. This system was
used at the 1893 Chicago Worlds Fair,
also known as the Colombian Exposition, which celebrated the 400th Anniversary of the first voyage of Christopher
Columbus to the new world.
When the directors of the Exposition
asked for bids for lighting the fair
grounds, both Westinghouse and the
newly formed General Electric Company were bidders. Westinghouse was able
to underbid the General Electric proposal by more than one half. Reportedly,
much of General Electrics estimated
cost was related to the amount of copper
wire needed for its planned dc system.
Powered by 12 750-kW two-phase, 60-

visitors. Overall, the 8,000 arc lights and

approximately 130,000 incandescent
lamps installed by Westinghouse turned
the neoclassical Worlds Fair buildings
and fairgrounds into a city of light and
demonstrated that ac systems were both
practical and available. From that point
forward, ac quickly eclipsed the dc
power system technology espoused by
Edison and others.
The 1892-1893 period saw the
invention of the synchronous rotary converter with ac slip rings at one end and a
dc commutator at the other end. This
development allowed for the supply of
dc to street car traction systems from
polyphase ac systems. Also, C.F. Scott,
a Westinghouse engineer, developed the
T transformer design that allowed for
static conversion between two-phase
and three-phase power.
Finally, the ascendancy of ac power
systems was further confirmed by the

Westinghouse
turned the 1893
Worlds Fair
buildings and
fairgrounds into
a city of light,
demonstrating
that ac systems
were both practical and available.

Hz alternators located in the Hall of

Machinery, more than 100,000 incandescent light bulbs based on an 1880
Sawyer-Man patent, the rights to which
Westinghouse had acquired, were lit by
President Grover Cleveland when the
Exposition opened on 1 May 1893. In
addition, a complete Tesla polyphase
system of generation, transmission, and
400- to 1,200-V step-up and step-down
transformers was displayed and demonstrated in the Great Hall of Electricity for
the benefit of the Expositions 27 million

development of the Niagara Falls Project. Man had long sought to harness the
vast power of the Niagara River at Niagara Falls. In 1886, the Cataract Construction Company was granted a charter
to use the equivalent of 120,000 horsepower of the Niagara flow. Plans to create an industrial city along the river bank
to utilize the water power were abandoned because of the lack of sufficient
available land for such purpose.
In 1890, the International Niagara
Commission was formed with Sir
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William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin)

as its chairman. The Commission was
instructed to investigate and evaluate
means to put Niagaras immense power
to useful work, and $22,000 in prize
money was offered in connection with a
call for proposals. Seventeen proposals
were received from representatives of
six countries. In addition to proposals to
transmit energy by compressed air,
manila and wire rope, water pressure,
and other mechanical and hydraulic
means, there were four proposals using
dc and two using ac. Ultimately, a
polyphase ac generation and transmission system was selected in 1893, and
Westinghouse provided the first three
5,000-horsepower, two-phase alternators operating at 25 Hz and 2,250 V.
These largest alternators yet built had to
be designed from scratch. In 18 months,
the first was completed. It was installed
in April 1895, and the first power was
delivered in August of that year to the
Pittsburgh Reduction Company, now the
Aluminum Company of America, for
the production of aluminum at Niagara
Falls near the Niagara Falls Power Station. By November 1895, all three of the
first alternators were completed, and on
16 November 1896, a 20-mile-long, 11kV transmission line to carry ac power
to Buffalo, New York, was energized. In
the following years, the Niagara Project
was greatly expanded, and by 1905
there were 21 generators in operation in
two power stations.
The application of ac for long-distance power transmission was critical to
developing and utilizing the power of
Niagara Falls. This project, now designated an IEEE Milestone, was, at the
time, the largest and most spectacular
use of ac in America. By integrating and
applying advances in electrical science
and technology then occurring on both
sides of the Atlantic Ocean, the Niagara
Project helped set the stage for the universal electrification that was to come.

Epilogue
In the industrial world of 1880, the use
of electrical energy was virtually
unknown. Mechanical power, generally
using muscle power, water, or steam as
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The brief but intense battle of

the currents between ac and dc
conclusively determined the
direction of future development
throughout the world.

Niagara Falls Power Station no. 2, ca. 1905. (Photo courtesy of the Smithsonian
Institution.)

the prime mover, reigned supreme. In the

quarter century following 1880, the
development of electric generation,
transmission, and distribution systems
and the invention and continual improvement of motor drives, switchgear, controls, and other electrical devices
profoundly transformed everyday life
and industry, thereby making modern
society possible. The brief but intense
battle of the currents between ac and
dc conclusively determined the direction
of future development throughout the
world.

Further Reading
J.D. Ryder and D. G. Fink, Engineers
and Electrons; A Century of Electrical

Progress. New York; IEEE Press, 1984.

A.M. McMahon, The Making of a
Profession: A Century of Electrical
Engineering in America. New York:
IEEE Press, 1984.
C.S. Derganc, Thomas Edison and
his electric lighting system, IEEE Spectrum, vol. 16, pp. 50-59, Feb. 1979.
Creating the electric age, EPRI J.,
vol. 4, no. 2, March 1979.
The Electric century, 1874-1974,
Electrical World, June 1974.
Pearl Street, A Centennial Commemoration, IEEE Power Engineering
Society, 1982.
H. Freitag, ed., Electrical Engineering: The Second Century Begins. New
p&e
York: IEEE Press, 1986.
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