The
Ames Hydroelectric Generating Plant, located near
Ophir, ColoradoThe historic Town of Ophir is a Home Rule Municipality located in San Miguel County, Colorado, United States. Ophir was the site of the world's first commercial system to generate and transmit alternating current electricity, the Ames Hydroelectric Generating Plant...
, was the world's first commercial system to produce and transmit
alternating currentIn alternating current the movement of electric charge periodically reverses direction. An electric charge would for instance move forward, then backward, then forward, then backward, over and over again...
(AC)
electricityElectricity is a general term that encompasses a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge...
. It is now on the
List of IEEE Milestones.
In the summer of 1890,
Westinghouse Electric (1886)Founded in 1886 as Westinghouse Electric Company and later renamed Westinghouse Electric Corporation by George Westinghouse. The company purchased CBS in 1995 and was renamed CBS Corporation in 1997. George Westinghouse had previously founded the Westinghouse Air Brake Company.The company pioneered...
supplied the station's
generatorIn electricity generation, an electrical generator is a device that converts mechanical energy to electrical energy. The reverse conversion of electrical energy into mechanical energy is done by a motor; motors and generators have many similarities...
and
motorMotor usually refers to either an electrical motor or an internal combustion engine. It may also refer to:*Electric motor, a machine that converts electricity into a mechanical motion**AC motor, an electric motor that is driven by alternating current...
. They were installed in the winter, and from Spring 1891 provided alternating current electricity that was transmitted 2.6 miles to a motor-driven
stamp millA stamp mill is a type of mill machine that crushes material by pounding rather than grinding, either for further processing or for extraction of metallic ores. Breaking material down is a type of unit operation....
at the Gold King Mine, then at risk of shutdown from lack of timber fuel for its existing steam mill.
The generator is driven by a six-foot
Pelton wheelThe Pelton wheel is among the most efficient types of water turbines. It was invented by Lester Allan Pelton in the 1870s, and is an impulse machine, meaning that it uses the principle of Newton's second law to extract energy from a jet of fluid. Many variations of impulse turbines existed prior...
under a 320-foot head.
The
Ames Hydroelectric Generating Plant, located near
Ophir, ColoradoThe historic Town of Ophir is a Home Rule Municipality located in San Miguel County, Colorado, United States. Ophir was the site of the world's first commercial system to generate and transmit alternating current electricity, the Ames Hydroelectric Generating Plant...
, was the world's first commercial system to produce and transmit
alternating currentIn alternating current the movement of electric charge periodically reverses direction. An electric charge would for instance move forward, then backward, then forward, then backward, over and over again...
(AC)
electricityElectricity is a general term that encompasses a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge...
. It is now on the
List of IEEE Milestones.
In the summer of 1890,
Westinghouse Electric (1886)Founded in 1886 as Westinghouse Electric Company and later renamed Westinghouse Electric Corporation by George Westinghouse. The company purchased CBS in 1995 and was renamed CBS Corporation in 1997. George Westinghouse had previously founded the Westinghouse Air Brake Company.The company pioneered...
supplied the station's
generatorIn electricity generation, an electrical generator is a device that converts mechanical energy to electrical energy. The reverse conversion of electrical energy into mechanical energy is done by a motor; motors and generators have many similarities...
and
motorMotor usually refers to either an electrical motor or an internal combustion engine. It may also refer to:*Electric motor, a machine that converts electricity into a mechanical motion**AC motor, an electric motor that is driven by alternating current...
. They were installed in the winter, and from Spring 1891 provided alternating current electricity that was transmitted 2.6 miles to a motor-driven
stamp millA stamp mill is a type of mill machine that crushes material by pounding rather than grinding, either for further processing or for extraction of metallic ores. Breaking material down is a type of unit operation....
at the Gold King Mine, then at risk of shutdown from lack of timber fuel for its existing steam mill.
The generator is driven by a six-foot
Pelton wheelThe Pelton wheel is among the most efficient types of water turbines. It was invented by Lester Allan Pelton in the 1870s, and is an impulse machine, meaning that it uses the principle of Newton's second law to extract energy from a jet of fluid. Many variations of impulse turbines existed prior...
under a 320-foot head. Its 100
horsepowerHorsepower is the name of several non-SI units of power. It was originally defined to allow the output of steam engines to be measured and compared with the power output of draft horses. The horsepower was widely adopted to measure the output of piston engines, turbines, electric motors and other...
Westinghouse
alternatorAn alternator is an electromechanical device that converts mechanical energy to alternating current electrical energy. Most alternators use a rotating magnetic field but linear alternators are occasionally used...
was the largest then manufactured, generating electricity at 3000
voltThe volt is the SI derived unit of electromotive force, commonly called "voltage". It is also the unit for the related but slightly different quantity electric potential difference...
s, 133 Hertz, single-phase AC.
VoltmeterA voltmeter is an instrument used for measuring the electrical potential difference between two points in an electric circuit. Analog voltmeters move a pointer across a scale in proportion to the voltage of the circuit; digital voltmeters give a numerical display of voltage by use of an analog to...
s and
ammeterAn ammeter is a measuring instrument used to measure the electric current in a circuit. Electric currents are measured in amperes , hence the name. Smaller values of current can be measured using a milliameter or a microammeter. Early ammeters were laboratory instruments only which relied on the...
s were of both the
solenoidA solenoid is a three-dimensional coil. In physics, the term solenoid refers to a loop of wire, often wrapped around a metallic core, which produces a magnetic field when an electric current is passed through it...
and gravity balance types. The transmission line was built from
Western UnionThe Western Union Company is a financial services and communications company based in the United States. Its North American headquarters is in Greenwood Village, Colorado, and its international marketing and commercial services headquarters are in Montvale, New Jersey...
cross-arms with insulators carrying two bare copper wires. Total wire costs were about US $700, about 1% of the cost estimated for a direct-current line. The entire plant required 15 to 20 attendants for its continuous operation.
The station was built during the "
War of CurrentsIn the "War of Currents" era in the late 1880s, George Westinghouse and Thomas Edison became adversaries due to Edison's promotion of direct current for electric power distribution over alternating current advocated by Westinghouse and Nikola Tesla.- Introduction :During the initial years of...
" between Westinghouse and
Thomas EdisonThomas Alva Edison was an American inventor, scientist and businessman who developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb...
as to whether
alternating currentIn alternating current the movement of electric charge periodically reverses direction. An electric charge would for instance move forward, then backward, then forward, then backward, over and over again...
or
direct currentDirect current is the undirectional flow of electric charge. Direct current is produced by such sources as batteries, thermocouples, solar cells, and commutator-type electric machines of the dynamo type. Direct current may flow in a conductor such as a wire, but can also be through...
electric power would prevail, and its success led to adoption of
alternating currentIn alternating current the movement of electric charge periodically reverses direction. An electric charge would for instance move forward, then backward, then forward, then backward, over and over again...
at much larger plants at
Niagara FallsThe Niagara Falls are voluminous waterfalls on the Niagara River, straddling the international border between the Canadian province of Ontario and the U.S. state of New York...
(1895) and its eventual dominance worldwide.
The 1905 power house is still in service for Western Colorado Power Company, with two Pelton wheels powering a single 1904
General ElectricThe General Electric Company, or GE , is a multinational American technology and services conglomerate incorporated in the State of New York. In 2009, Forbes ranked GE as the world's largest company...
generator, with output of 2,400 volts, and 1,082 amperes at a speed of 225 R.P.M.
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