Electrification originally referred to the build out of the electrical generating and distribution systems which occurred in the United States, England and other countries from the mid 1880's until around 1940 and is in progress in developing countries. This also included the change over from line shaft and belt drive using steam engines and water power to electric motors.[1][2] Electrification was called "the greatest engineering achievement of the 20th Century" by the National Academy of Engineering.[3]
An alternate definition refers to the modification of a system so that it operates using electricity such as the change of railroad locomotives from steam or diesel to electricity.
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Large-scale use of electricity for lighting and power required development of economically practical electric generators, lights, and motors. Until the latter decades of the 19th century, the most important uses of electricity were for the telegraph and for electroplating. Both these technologies required relatively small amounts of energy that could be produced from expensive primary batteries that converted the chemical energy in their components into electric current. Large scale use of electricity as an energy carrier required more efficient,lower cost, methods.
Electric lighting was the second use of electricity, following the widespread use of the electrical telegraph in earlier decades. To make electric lighting competitive in cost with gas light or other combustion-based sources of artificial light required an efficient dynamo, a machine that could convert mechanical energy from falling water or expanding steam into electric power. Electric lighting was highly desirable. The light was much brighter than oil or gas lamps, and there was no soot. Although early electricity was very expensive, very soon electric lighting in urban areas, using electricity generated at a central station, was cheaper and more convenient than oil or gas lighting. Electric lighting was so much safer than oil or gas that some companies were able to pay for the electricity with the insurance savings.[2] In the 1880s electric arc lamps were installed along streets in some cities in very limited areas, usually near public places.[2]
The electric light bulb was first patented in England by 1878 by Joseph Swan after having experimented since about 1850. Thomas Edison in the U.S. was granted a U.S. patent in 1879, and developed the required infrastructure of dynamo generating plants, distribution wiring, building wiring, control devices and metering, required to put electric lighting onto a commercial business basis. Edison initially concentrated on electric lighting in densely populated urban areas; his direct-current transmission at the same voltage used by the lamps forced generation to be within a short distance of the lighting customers.
Frank J. Sprague developed the first successful DC motor (ca. 1886) by solving the problem of varying speed with load. Within a few years DC motors were used in electric street railways.[2]
The War of Currentsdescribes the era in which the technical and economic merits of AC and DC distribution were explored, often with great public debate. Although the first electric utilities (Edison) generated DC power, the advantages of AC were soon apparent after the development of transformers and AC motors.[4]
Alternating current allowed a high voltage to be used for transmission of power from a distant central generating station to geographically widely-distributed loads, where individual transformers reduced the transmission voltage to convenient values for lighting and motors. By contrast, direct-current distribution required either that generating stations be located very close to loads (on the order of a mile (kilometer)), or else required costly and inefficient rotating machines to convert from high transmission voltage to lower utilization voltage. Direct-current networks for distribution were only used in a few cities, and gradually shrank and disappeared, although the last DC distribution in New York City was not terminated until 2007.
Electrification of factories began very gradually in the 1890s after the introduction of a practical D.C. motor by Frank J. Sprague and accelerated around 1900 after AC motors were developed by Nikola Tesla (Westinghouse) and others. Electric motors were several times more efficient than small steam engines because central station generation were more efficient than small steam engines and because line shafts and belts had high friction losses.
Electrification enabled modern mass production, as with Thomas Edison’s iron ore processing plant (circa 1893) that could process 20,000 tons ore per day with two shifts of five men each. At that time it was still common to handle bulk materials with shovels, wheelbarrows and small narrow gauge rail cars, and for comparison, a canal digger in previous decades typically handled 3-1/2 to 5 cubic yards per 12 hour day.
The biggest impact of early mass production was in manufacturing everyday items, such as at the Ball Brothers Glass Manufacturing Company, which electrified its mason jar plant in Muncie, Ohio, USA around 1900. The new automated process used glass blowing machines to replace 210 craftsman glass blowers and helpers. A small electric truck was used to handle 150 dozen bottles at a time where previously a hand truck would carry 6 dozen. Electric mixers replaced men with shovels handling sand and other ingredients that were fed into the glass furnace. An electric overhead crane replaced 36 day laborers for moving heavy loads across the factory.
According to Henry Ford:
The electrification of households in the U.S. began around 1905 in major cities and in areas served by electric railways and increased rapidly until about 1930 when 70% of households were electrified. Many of he remaining mostly rural households were electrified before 1950 by the Rural Electrification Administration.[5]
In the United States, widespread rural electrification began with the establishment of the Rural Electric Administration (REA) in 1935 and its associated local Rural Electric Cooperatives.
Electric utilities in the U.S., U.K. and a few other countries began their rapid growth in the early 1900s. The efficient generation of electricity using steam turbines beginning in 1903 and increasing economies of scale led to dramatic reductions in the cost of electricity and corresponding exponential growth in usage.
One of the first uses of electricity was electric street railways, which became a major transportation infrastructure before being displaced by motor buses and automobiles.[2]
"One of the inventions most important to a class of highly skilled workers (engineers) would be a small motive power - ranging perhaps from the force of from half a man to that of two horses, which might commence as well as cease its action at a moment's notice, require no expense of time for its management and be of modest cost both in original cost and in daily expense." Charles Babbage, 1851[6]
The period of electrification of factories and households in the U. S., from 1900 to 1930, was one of high productivity and economic growth.
Central station electric power generating can provide power more efficiently and at lower cost than small generators. The capital and operating cost per unit of power is also cheaper with central stations.[1] The cost of electricity fell dramatically in the first decades of the twentieth century due to the introduction of steam turbines in 1904 and the spread of electric utilities after WW I. For a cost curve see Ayres-Warr (2002) Fig. 3[7]
In economics, the efficiency of electrical generation has been shown to correlate with technological progress.[7]
Electric lighting uses far less energy than formerly used gas and oil, and is much safer.
Most electricity is generated by thermal power stations or steam plants , the majority of which are fossil fuel power stations that burn coal, natural gas, fuel oil or bio-fuels, such as wood waste and black liquor from chemical pulping.
The most efficient thermal system is combined cycle in which a combustion turbine powers a generator using the high temperature combustion gases and then exhausts the cooler combustion gases to generate low pressure steam for conventional steam cycle generation.
Hydroelectricity uses a water turbine to generate power. Between 1880 and 1895, hydropower was beginning to be used for generating electricity; these first hydroelectric plants produced direct current (DC) used mostly to power nearby arc and incandescent lighting.[8]
Advances in recent decades greatly lowered the cost of wind power making it one of the most competitive alternate energies and competitive with higher priced natural gas (before shale gas). Wind energy's main problem is that it is too intermittent and there is no practical storage infrastructure.
Geothermal requires very hot underground temperatures near the surface to generate steam which is used in a low temperature steam plant. Geothermal power is only used in a few areas. Italy supplies all of the electrified rail network with geothermal power.
The infrastructure required for electrification includes power plants, an electric power transmission grid, substations and shorter distribution lines to the specific structure of daily life views & power interact of these sub - co -ordination point of energy.
Transmission of electricity depends on switchgear for safe switching on and off of lines and equipment. Switchgear includes manual knife type switches and solenoid controlled switches such as in motor starters and also fuses and and circuit breakers. See also: Motor controller
One of the largest electrification projects was the GOELRO plan, adopted in 1920 and fulfilled in 1931 in the USSR.
Electrification of transportation [9] is the use of hybrid electric and all-electric vehicles instead of all-petroleum vehicles.[10]
Electrification, in a railway context, describes the process of converting a railway system from steam- or diesel-powered propulsion, to electric traction, and covers the modification of the infrastructure and the provision of suitable rolling stock.
Electrification of transport figures prominently in the Green Car Initiative, included in the European Economic Recovery Plan presented November 2008. DG TREN is supporting a large European "electromobility" project on electric vehicles and related infrastructure with a total budget of around € 50million as part of the Green Car Initiative.[9]
Electricity is:
As a result, it gives the greatest degree of energy resilience and the energy system is going to electrification.[11]