class="right bot padr1">306

ELECTRIC TRANSMISSION OF WATER-POWER.

CHAPTER I.
WATER-POWER IN ELECTRICAL SUPPLY.

Electrical supply from transmitted water-power is now distributed in more than fifty cities of North America. These include Mexico City, with a population of 402,000; Buffalo and San Francisco, with 352,387 and 342,782 respectively; Montreal, with 266,826, and Los Angeles, St. Paul, and Minneapolis, with populations that range between 100,000 and 200,000 each. North and south these cities extend from Quebec to Anderson, and from Seattle to Mexico City. East and west the chain of cities includes Portland, Springfield, Albany, Buffalo, Hamilton, Toronto, St. Paul, Butte, Salt Lake City, and San Francisco. To reach these cities the water-power is electrically transmitted, in many cases dozens, in a number of cases scores, and in one case more than two hundred miles. In the East, Canada is the site of the longest transmission, that from Shawinigan Falls to Montreal, a distance of eighty-five miles.

From Spier Falls to Albany the electric line is forty miles in length. Hamilton is thirty-seven miles from that point on the Niagara escarpment, where its electric power is developed. Between St. Paul and its electric water-power station, on Apple River, the transmission line is twenty-five miles long. The falls of the Missouri River at Cañon Ferry are the source of the electrical energy distributed in Butte, sixty-five miles away. Los Angeles draws electrical energy from a plant eighty-three miles distant on the Santa Ana River. From Colgate power-house, on the Yuba, to San Francisco, by way of Mission San José, the transmission line has a length of 220 miles. Between Electra generating station in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and San Francisco is 154 miles by the electric line.

Fig. 1.—Spier Falls Transmission Lines.

Larger map (204 kB)

These transmissions involve large powers as well as long distances. The new plant on the Androscoggin is designed to deliver 10,000 horse-power for electrical supply in Lewiston, Me. At Spier Falls, on the Hudson, whence energy goes to Albany and other cities, the electric generators will have a capacity of 32,000 horse-power. From the two water-power stations at Niagara Falls, with their twenty-one electric generators of 5,000 horse-power each, a total of 105,000, more than 30,000 horse-power is regularly transmitted to Buffalo alone; the greater part of the capacity being devoted to local industries. Electrical supply in St. Paul is drawn from a water-power plant of 4,000 and in Minneapolis from a like plant of 7,400 horse-power capacity. The Cañon Ferry station, on the Missouri, that supplies electrical energy in both Helena and Butte, has a capacity of 10,000 horse-power. Both Seattle and Tacoma draw electrical supply from the 8,000 horse-power plant at Snoqualmie Falls. The Colgate power-house, which develops energy for San Francisco and a number of smaller places, has electric generators of 15,000 horse-power aggregate capacity. At the Electra generating station, where energy is also transmitted to San Francisco and other cities on the way, the capacity is 13,330 horse-power. Electrical supply in Los Angeles is drawn from the generating station of 4,000 horse-power, on the Santa Ana River, and from two stations, on Mill Creek, with an aggregate of 4,600, making a total capacity of not less than 8,600 horse-power. Five water-power stations, scattered within a radius of ten miles and with 4,200 horse-power total capacity, are the source of electrical supply in Mexico City.

The foregoing are simply a part of the more striking illustrations of that development by which falling water is generating hundreds of thousands of horse-power for electrical supply to millions of population. This application of great water powers to the industrial wants of distant cities is hardly more than a decade old. Ten years ago Shawinigan Falls was an almost unheard-of point in the wilds of Canada. Spier Falls was merely a place of scenic interest; the Missouri at Cañon Ferry was not lighting a lamp or displacing a pound of coal; that falling water in the Sierra Nevada Mountains should light the streets and operate electric cars in San Francisco seemed impossible, and that diversion of Niagara, which seems destined to develop more than a million horse-power and leave dry the precipices over which the waters now plunge, had not yet begun. In some few instances where water-power was located in towns or cities, it has been applied to electrical supply since the early days of the industry. In the main, however, the supply of electrical energy from water-power has been made possible only by long-distance transmission. The extending radius of electrical transmission for water-powers has formed the greatest incentive to their development. This development in turn has reacted on the conditions that limit electrical supply and has materially extended the field of its application. Transmitted water-power has reduced the rates for electric service. It may not be easy to prove this reduction by quoting figures for net rates, because these are not generally published, but there are other means of reaching the conclusion.

Fig. 2.—Snoqualmie Falls Transmission Lines.

Larger map (185 kB)

In the field of illumination electricity competes directly with gas, and in the field of motive power with coal. During the past decade it is well known that the price of gas has materially declined and the price of coal, barring the recent strike period, has certainly not increased. In spite of these reductions electrical supply from water-power has displaced both gas and coal in many instances.

Moreover, the expansion of electric water-power systems has been decidedly greater, as a rule, than that of electrical supply from steam-driven stations. An example of the fact last stated may be seen in Portland, Me. In the spring of 1899, a company was formed to transmit and distribute electrical energy in that city from a water-power about thirteen miles distant. For some years, prior to and since the date just named, an extensive electric system with steam-power equipment has existed in Portland. In spite of this, the system using water-power, on January 1st, 1903, had a connected load of 352 enclosed arcs and 20,000 incandescent lamps, besides 835 horse-power in motors.

Comparing the expansion of electric water-power systems with those operated by steam, when located in different cities, Hartford and Springfield may be taken on the one hand and Fall River and New Bedford on the other. The use of water-power in electrical supply at Hartford began in November, 1891, and has since continued to an increasing extent. Throughout the same period electrical supply in Fall River has been