Early AC Power: The First Long-Distance Lines [History]

In 1883, A 2,000-V, SINGLE-PHASE, 133 1/3-Hz power distribution system, designed and built by French inventor Lucien Gaulard and his British backer John Dixon Gibbs for the Metropolitan Railway of London, stretched for 15 mi and provided electric power for arc and incandescent lights at five railway stations. In 1884, a single-phase, 3,000-V, 133 1/3-Hz Gaulard?Gibbs power distribution system in Italy (Figure 1) extended about 25 mi from Turin (elevation 240 m, population 250,000 in 1881) to Lanzo Torinese (elevation 530 m, population 2,700 in 1881). It was the first multiple-user ac power-distribution system in the world. Having a small town at the foothills of the Italian Alps as the destination demonstrated the practicality of bringing electric power to remote, sparsely populated locations by using high-voltage ac power transmission. This would not have been possible profitably with Thomas Edison's low-voltage dc power transmission.