TK 1191 .163 Copy 1 THE PROGRESS OF ECONOMIC POWER GENERATION AND DISTRIBUTION BY SAMUEL INSULL > ■ AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT A JOINT MEETING OF THE NEW HAVEN, CONN., SECTIONS OF THE CIVIL, ELECTRICAL, MINING AND MECHANICAL ENGINEERING SOCIETIES HELD AT YALE UNI¬ VERSITY UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE NEW HAVEN SECTION OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERS ON APRIL 5, 1916 .. THE PROGRESS OF ECONOMIC POWER GENERATION AND DISTRIBUTION BY SAMUEL INSULL AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT A JOINT MEETING OF THE NEW HAVEN, CONN., SECTIONS OF THE CIVIL, ELECTRICAL, MINING AND MECHANICAL ENGINEERING SOCIETIES HELD AT YALE UNI¬ VERSITY UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE NEW HAVEN SECTION OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERS ON APRIL 5, 1916 CHICAGO 1916 Y Copyright, 1916, by Samuel Insull / OCT 14 1916 ©CI.A445127 POWER GENERATION AND DISTRIBUTION I can assure you that it affords me very great pleasure to have the opportunity of addressing a joint meeting of the civil, electrical, mechanical and mining engineers under the aus¬ pices of the local section of the American Society of Mechan¬ ical Engineers. I have thought it fitting on this occasion to deal at some length with the historical aspect of the generation and distri¬ bution of electrical energy, and I shall present to you this evening a series of pictures bearing upon that subject and trac¬ ing the growth of the industry from the point of view of the apparatus used. At the end of my remarks I shall deal with some of the economic problems in connection with the busi¬ ness. As I have to present quite a number of lantern slides, I will not burden you with a long explanation, but shall trust to dealing with the various aspects of the question as the pictures and diagrams pass before you. Birthplace of the Central-Station Industry. The view presented on page 5 (Fig. 1) is really the birthplace of the central-station industry. It is some thirty-five years ago the first of last month, having arrived only the day be¬ fore, the last day of February, 1881, from England, to act as NOTE.—This is a revised stenographic report of an address delivered by Mr. Samuel Insull, President of the Commonwealth Edison Company, of Chicago (Illinois), at a joint meeting of the New Haven (Connecticut) sections of the Civil, Electrical, Mining and Mechanical Engineering societies, held under the auspices of the New Haven Section of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, at eight o’clock P. M. on April 5, 1916, in North Sheffield Hall, Sheffield Scientific School, Yale University. Dr. Arthur Twining Hadley, Presi¬ dent of Yale University, welcomed Mr. Insull and introduced him to the audience. 4 POWER GENERATION AND DISTRIBUTION Mr. Edison’s private secretary, that I had the opportunity of seeing in operation the first central station and distribution system ever erected anywhere in the world. I had come to this country from an atmosphere of doubt; in fact, more than doubt—of derision—of the accomplishments of the great jnventor in electric power production and distribution; and when it was my privilege first to see in operation the first generating station and distribution system, Menlo Park pre¬ sented exactly the appearance that it presents in the picture. We had had a late winter, and I had never seen any such amount of snow. As I trudged around the countryside and saw the small electric glow lamps burning over an area of about half a mile square, it seemed almost impossible to real¬ ize that what was popularly called at that time the “subdi¬ vision” of electric current had been achieved by Mr. Edison. One building contained the generating station. The con¬ ductors—this was prior to the days of the three-wire sys¬ tem—the conductors were composed of two lines laid un¬ derground in tubes filled with a compound composed of in¬ sulating material. All the buildings of Mr. Edison’s experimental establish¬ ment are not shown in the view here. The lamp factory, for instance—the first incandescent-lamp factory which Mr. Edison erected—was half a mile away. A portion of the lamp factory was operated by an electric motor, the energy being supplied from the experimental station erected in Mr. Edison’s laboratory. The central-station electric-lighting sys¬ tem of early days was uneconomical from our point of view, as the energy per candlepower was between six and eight times as much as the energy now used. But from an engineer¬ ing point of view, with the exception of the greater efficiency of the translating devices as now used, and the greater econ¬ omy of investment of the distribution system, the system in¬ stalled by Mr. Edison in the winter of 1880, and seen by me on the first of March, 1881, was in all respects identi¬ cal with the system that is employed today throughout the world. POWER GENERATION AND DISTRIBUTION y Fig. 1. Edison Laboratory at Menlo Park, Winter of 1880 (•> POWER GENERATION AND DISTRIBUTION Early Incandescent Lamps and Dynamos. Fig. 2 gives you an idea of the lamp as originally made. That lamp took about six or eight watts per candle, possibly ten watts per candle. The filament was carbonized bam¬ boo filament, which then seemed to be the best substance obtainable for the purpose. It is interesting to note in pass¬ ing that that bamboo carbonized filament was used after a Fig. 2 Fig. 3 Early Edison Incandescent Lamp Old Edison Dynamo series of experiments on metallic filaments which proved more or less of a failure at that time. Platinum and other metals were used; and if you will refer to some of Mr. Edison’s early patents on incandescent lamps, I think you will find that he mentioned the possible use of tungsten in connection with the making of filaments for incandescent lamps. That (Fig. 3) is the typical generating machine of those days. Those of you who have been in the industry since the early days will recognize it as the machine which was commonly called the “Z" machine. The first machine of that general character—I won't attempt to go this evening into any- technical descriptions of this or any of the other POWER GENERATION AND DISTRIBUTION apparatus represented—but the first one of that character was installed in the Jeannette, which sailed on the 8th of July, 1879, for the Arctic. The Jeannette, formerly the Pandora, was sent by James Gordon Bennett of the New York Herald on a voyage of discovery to the North Pole, and the first machine that Mr. Edison supplied for any purpose out¬ side of his laboratory was the machine which he supplied for use on the Jeannette. Commercial Plants on Sea and Land. The first commercial plant installed, the same class of machine being used, was installed in the steamship Columbia, a passenger boat built by John Roach for the Northern Pa¬ cific Railroad, or one of its predecessors, and which ran for years between San Francisco and Portland, Oregon. The plant installed in 1880 was in operation until a comparatively few years ago. The same class of machine was installed by Mr. Edison and his associates for the first time on land in a plant sup¬ plied to Hinds, Ketcham & Company, of New York, in Jan¬ uary, 1881, and it is interesting to note that the first lamp factory, to which I have already referred, was operated for Fig. 4 . Edison’s Steam Dynamo of 1880 s POWER GENERATION AND DISTRIBUTION some time by a motor of similar construction but smaller size than the machine illustrated. Probably the first direct-connected unit ever built is the one illustrated by Fig. 4. The engine was designed by Mr. Charles T. Porter, the noted steam engineer. The dynamo was made under specifications supplied by Mr. Edison, and I think the capacity of the machine was probably about thirty or forty kilowatts. It was built to run at a speed of 600 revolutions a minute, but the speed was found to be too high for safe and economical operation. The machine was purely an experimental machine and was used only at Menlo Park in the laboratory, and the use of the machine was discontin¬ ued in 1881. Pearl Street and Appleton Stations. The next view (Fig. 5) is that of the first commercial di¬ rect-connected unit, which was originally ordered for use in the old Pearl Street station of the Edison Electric Illumin¬ ating Company of New York, a station which was erected on Pearl Street just south of Fulton Street, in what is known in New York as “The Swamp.” It is interesting to note that the fundamental engineering principles followed by the great inventor himself in his early engineering work, while for one reason or another they were temporarily discarded, finally again in the last twenty years have come into their own; and there are few of us today who would think of ordering any¬ thing but a direct-connected unit. This particular machine had connected to it an Armington & Sims engine made by that firm in Providence, Rhode Island, and was shown at the Paris Electrical Exposition in the fall of 1881, and was considered there a marvel of perfect elec¬ trical and mechanical construction. Two other machines of the same general design and make were shipped to London and installed in Holborn Viaduct Station, which was the first central station in the world supplying electricity on a commercial basis. It was first oper¬ ated on April 11, 1882, but was subsequently abandoned. POWER GENERATION AND DISTRIBUTION 9 Fig. 5. Edison Jumbo Steam Dynamo No. 1 (1881) 10 POWER GENERATION AND DISTRIBUTION It is rather a long cry from the center of the greatest metropolis of the world to the lumber regions of Wiscon¬ sin, but so far as this country is concerned (and I think so far as any country is concerned), Appleton, Wisconsin, can claim the credit of starting the first central station whose distribution system—not whose original station—but whose dis¬ tribution system—has been continuously operated since August 15, 1882. An exterior view of the original Appleton Edison station is given in Fig. 6. It was an accident that the Apple- ton, Wisconsin, station should have been started earlier than the first large station in New York, owing to the fact, as you will see by an inspection of Fig. 7, that it took the Appleton company only a short time to install the equipment, the station being very small. The generator shown in Fig. 7 is a slightly different ma¬ chine on the same general lines as the one already shown, but with three sets of magnets—called, I think, the “K” ma¬ chine—simply three of the “Z” machines put together and called the “K” machine. Otherwise the machine is exactly the same as the original “Z” machine at Menlo Park. This “K” machine had a capacity, I think, of 280 lights of ten candle- power each. The dynamo-electric machine, though small, was robust, for under all the varying speeds of water-power, and the vicissitudes of the plant to which it belonged, it continued in active use until 1889, when it was superseded by later apparatus. Early Plants That Paid. The view in Fig. 8 is not a very good one, as it is a photograph of a model of the historic Edison station at Pearl Street, New York. The regulating room was at the top. This station was put into service on September 4, 1882. The original equipment consisted of six Porter engines of 125 horse-power each. These were subsequently replaced by Arm- ington & Sims engines. The six dynamos were of the Edison Jumbo type and were direct-connected, showing Mr. Edi¬ son’s conception that what was necessary for central-station POWER GENERATION AND DISTRIBUTION 11 Fig. 6. Exterior of Edison Station in Appleton, Wis. (1882) Fig. 7. Interior of Edison Station in Appleton, Wis. (1882) 12 POWER GENERATION AND DISTRIBUTION work was dynamo-electric machines directly connected to the shaft of the engine. I think the two plants—Appleton, Wis¬ consin, and Pearl Street, New York—and probably a third plant erected at Milan in Northern Italy—are very remark¬ able tributes to the fundamental economic possibilities of the business of generating and distributing electrical energy. Fig. 9 shows the plant at Milan in Northern Italy. It was the one with which my friend, Mr. John W. Lieb, vice-presi- Fig. 8 . Model of Original Edison Station on Pearl Street, New York ( 1882 ) POWER GENERATION AND DISTRIBUTION 13 Fig. 9. Edison Central Station of Milan, Italy (1883) Fig. 10. Original Edison Building in Chicago 14 POWER GENERATION AND DISTRIBUTION dent of the New York Edison Company, was associated in its early days. The plant in Milan and the plant in New York were of similar construction; and the point that I wish to draw to your attention particularly at this time is that these two plants, large in their day—seeming ridiculously small at this time, but large, very large, in their day—and the little plant at Appleton, Wisconsin, all of them showed in a very short time a substantial return on the original cash invest¬ ment made by the original capitalists who had the courage and the enterprise to put their money into a new industry. It is very seldom that original apparatus and original capital have shown a return to the investor in any great new departure in industrial affairs. Take the kindred industry, the gas busi¬ ness. I think that gas had been introduced twenty-four years before any return on the capital invested was shown. But in the early days of the electric-lighting business it was only about two to three years before the balance sheet of the enterprise was in such condition as to recommend it to men of capital. Central-Station Beginnings in Chicago. From now on I will probably present more views bearing on the enterprise that my name is particularly associated with, namely, the Chicago enterprise; and my excuse for doing so is that I am naturally more familiar with the work there than with any other enterprises. The first Edison plant in Chicago was located at 120 West Adams Street (originally 139 Adams Street), in the building represented by Fig. 10. It was first started in 1888 and was shut down permanently in 1894, a few years after I became connected with the Chi¬ cago company. The original equipment consisted of four 200 horse-power Armington & Sims engines, each driving two No. 32 Edison bipolar generators with a capacity of 80 kilowatts each. Fig. 11 shows you a view of the engine room. We had discarded the use of the direct-connected units in the early eighties. We found, in the then condition of the steam¬ engineering art, that we could install plants cheaper with POWER GENERATION AND DISTRIBUTION 15 Fig. 11. Engine Room in Original Edison Station, Chicago Fig. 12. Dynamo Room in Original Edison Station, Chicago 1G POWER GENERATION AND DISTRIBUTION high-speed engines, some single-cylinder engines, but some of them compounds, belted to dynamos. Fig. 12 is a view of the original dynamo room in Adams Street, Chicago, just above the engine room, the belts running through the floor. The original three-wire switchboard installed at the Adams Street station in 1887 is illustrated in Fig. 13. The neutral Fig. 13 . Original Three-Wire Switchboard in Edison Station in Chicago cables were brought in from the street along the floor to small neutral bus-bars. The two large bars shown are the positive and negative busses. Importance of the Three-Wire System. Naturally a man of my environment and electrical education would say that the discovery of the three-wire system was made by Mr. Edison; others would probably give the credit to Werner von Siemens, and still others would probably give the credit to Dr. John Hopkinson. But I think the economic value of the three-wire system was really discovered by Mr. Edison. The various claims as to the amount of copper that would be saved over a two-wire system were estimated at various percentages, and I think the one more nearly cor- POWER GENERATION AND DISTRIBUTION 17 rect was the claim of Mr. Edison, who, my recollection is, thought that the saving would be somewhere between sixty- five and seventy per cent. The invention of the three-wire system of distribution made possible the extension of incandescent light and power from direct current over much wider areas than we had been used to installing in the days of the two-wire system, and probably the real growth of the business dates from that par¬ ticular invention. Harrison Street Station, Chicago. I am now going to jump to a very different class of apparatus, and I give you (Fig. 14) an exterior view of the Harrison Street station of the old Chicago Edison Company. It. was first operated in 1894 with a capacity of 2,400 kilowatts. Its maximum capacity was 16,200 kilowatts, and in its day was considered a very large station. This plant, which in its Fig. 14 . Harrison Street Station, Chicago 18 POWER GENERATION AND DISTRIBUTION day was considered so large, was considered obsolete last year and was sold, the property to be used as part of the new terminal of the railroads entering the Union Depot. The kilowatt-hours developed during the life of the plant—that is, from the time it started in 1894 until it last was operated early last year, early in 1915—the kilowatt-hours developed amounted to 534,783,000—less than one-half of the total output of the company for the year 1915. I have some affection for that old building, as it is the first plant that I built after leaving the manufacturing side of the electrical business and joining the business of manu¬ facturing electrical energy. I am sorry to see the old plant torn down. It is a milestone, so to speak, as it marks my entry into manufacturing kilowatt-hours instead of electrical apparatus. But the exigencies of the steam-railroad trans¬ portation business made it necessary to demolish the sta¬ tion. A great number of the experiments that have led up to the modern systems of generation and distribution were conducted in the Harrison Street station, as you will see from some of the pictures that I shall show. Marine-Tvpe Generating Units. A general interior view of the plant at Harrison Street is shown in Fig. 15. Two engines here were the first two large marine-type vertical engines connected to electric generators built in this country. A few smaller sizes had previously been built. Prior to our starting the building of this class of engines, a German company had built some marine- type engines for the Berliner Elektricitats-Werke. The first dynamos for the Berliner Elektricitats-Werke were built by Siemens & Halske, and the engines probably by one of the steamship builders on the German coast. My principal assistant at Schenectady (now the General Electric Company’s works at Schenectady) was at that time the late Mr. John Kruesi. He returned from a trip to Europe bringing with him the plans of the marine-type vertical engines then being built and having connected with them large dynamos on the POWER GENERATION AND DISTRIBUTION 19 Fig. 15. Interior of Harrison Street Station, Chicago Fig. 16. First Rotary Converters, Twenty-seventh Street Station Chicago 20 POWER GENERATION AND DISTRIBUTION same shaft, in some cases one at each end and in some cases only at one end. I endeavored to get the engine builders of the United States to discard high-speed engines and build slower speed marine engines of greater economy for electrical pur¬ poses. They were getting a good deal of money out of build¬ ing high-speed coal consumers, and they were very averse to making the change. In order to force the hands of the manu- facters we were compelled to build engines ourselves at Schenectady. One was built for the old Cincinnati Edison Company and never used by them, and the other was finished and installed at the World’s Fair in Chicago in 1893. The Chicago Edison Company, of which I was then president, and which had then just started to build this Harrison Street property, purchased the two units from the General Electric Company. The engines at the back, as shown in Fig. 15, were two large Corliss engines, built later by the Allis Com¬ pany of Milwaukee, from designs made by the head of their engineering department, Mr. Reynolds. The Change to Alternating Current, with Substations. Except for a small suburban station, of which I will show you a view later, the Harrison Street station was the last direct- current station built in the city of Chicago; in fact, a portion of the apparatus which I will show you later, one of the large Corliss engines, turned out both direct and alternating current. Particularly interesting is this view (Fig. 16), which rep¬ resents our first rotary converters. We put them into use at our Twenty-seventh Street station on October 15, 1897. We had a small steam station there, and turned it into a combina¬ tion station in 1897. These pieces of apparatus are interest¬ ing not only to the Commonwealth Edison Company but to the industry as a whole, as I believe they represent the first at¬ tempts in this country at massing the production of energy where it could be manufactured cheaply in large quantities, and its distribution made to distant points where the electricity could be converted to whatever pressure was necessary to enable it to be used in house-to-house service. The first rotary con- POWER GENERATION AND DISTRIBUTION 21 verters used in connection with an Edison central station anywhere were started by the Brooklyn Edison Company and the Chicago Edison Company in October, 1897, and I believe the engineers of the two companies are still disputing as to the claim of priority of use. The small machine that you see in the foreground in Fig. 17 was ordered as a double-current, belt-driven generator Fig. 17. First Rotary-Converter Installation at Harrison Street Station, Chicago 22 POWER GENERATION AND DISTRIBUTION and was to have been installed in one of our smaller steam stations in Chicago, but by the time the machine was com¬ pleted it was decided to install it in our Harrison Street sta¬ tion, as an “inverted rotary” to supply alternating-current energy to the rotary converters shown in Fig. 16. The Fig. 18. First Double-Current Generating Units, Harrison Street Station, Chicago initial voltage of this machine was 2,250 volts, and this was raised the next year to 4,500 volts, which was considered at that time to be very high voltage indeed to carry alternating current over underground cable. In 1900 the voltage was raised to 9,000, the same cables being used. POWER GENERATION AND DISTRIBUTION Cables and Machinery. It is rather a tribute to the early manufacturer of cables for high voltage that such increases in voltage were made sim¬ ply on the assurance of the cable manufacturer* who happened to dine with me here this evening. I believe the cable is still in use. The dynamos attached to the engine shown in Fig. 18 were originally direct-current machines. They were replaced in Fig. 19. Rotary Converter 11000 Kilowatts) in Substation 1898 by two 200-kilowatt double-current machines. That is, the machines were so designed that the output could be taken either in the form of direct current or 25-cycle alternating current. While it may seem a very simple matter to manufacture machines of that character today, at the time these ma¬ chines were put into service in 1898 it was thought to be a very extraordinary achievement. Fig. 19 shows, in the foreground, a 1,000-kilowatt light- and-power rotary converter in the Indiana Street substation, ^Referring to Mr. George J. Jackson, of New York, secretary and treasurer of the National Conduit and Cable Company.. 24 POWER GENERATION AND DISTRIBUTION Fig. 20. Rotary Converter of 4000 Kilowatts Fig. 21. View in Fifty-Sixth Street Station, Chicago POWER GENERATION AND DISTRIBUTION 25 Chicago, which supplies current for light and general power purposes. At the present time the substation has a capacity of three 1,000-kilowatt rotary converters. Next (Fig. 20) is a 4,000-kilowatt railway rotary. There are three 4,000-kilowatt rotaries at this substation, which is the Hermitage Avenue substation. This substation was built to shut down the Loomis Street steam plant of the Metropoli¬ tan West Side Elevated Railway. Steps in the Path of Progress. Now we go back to a small steam generating station. The plant shown in Fig. 21 was built and put in operation in 1899 to supply the south end of the city (varying from seven to seventeen miles from the center of the city) with 60-cycle energy. Previous to the introduction of the large steam tur- thought that cus¬ tomers away from the center of the city could best be s u p plied from steam plants in the district within a distribution range of three-mile ra¬ dius. This station had a capacity of 3,000 k i 1 o w a tts, and since 1906 has been used only as a peak reserve sta¬ tion for winter use. A f requency changer of 1,000 kilowatts in our Lake View substa¬ tion is shown in Fig. 22. Frequency Changer (1000 Kilowatts) 26 POWER GENERATION AND DISTRIBUTION Fig. 22. This was the next step in supplying the 60-cycle load from large generating centers, and, by transmission and con¬ version, furnishing the energy in the form required in the dis¬ trict in which it was used. The energy was generated and de¬ livered to the machine at 25 cycles and converted to 60 cycles before being sent out on the lines. The view in Fig. 23 is of a step-down transformer. In 1910 the 60-cycle load had grown to such proportions that Fig. 23'. Step-down Transformers in Substation in order to produce this energy at the lowest possible cost it became necessary to generate at 60 cycles in the big gen¬ erating stations, the only conversion being a step-down in voltage at the substation, as shown here. Great Modern Generating Stations. Fig. 24 gives an outside view of the Fisk and Quarry Street stations on the Chicago River. The large building in the center of the picture is the Fisk Street station, and the building on the left is the Quarry Street station. The Fisk Street station was the first large steam-turbine station ever erected. Turbines of a few thousand kilowatts had been put into use by Parsons of England and Brown, Boveri & Co. of Switzer- POWER GENERATION AND DISTRIBUTION 27 land, and one or two German manufacturers; but this was the first station built for steam turbines alone, and I think it was the first station built by an Edison company using alternating current as the basis of its generation. The capacity of the Fisk Street station is 165,000 kilo¬ watts, or 247,000 horse-power, and of the Quarry Street sta¬ tion is 84,000 kilowatts, or 126,000 horse-power. They are both run as one, under one organization, and together have a capacity of 249,000 kilowatts or 373,000 horse¬ power. I presume that some¬ time in the next few years those two stations will repre¬ sent a total of about 500,000 horse-power. To show the magnitude on which the business is con¬ ducted these stations have been run at the highest pos¬ sible load factor because the apparatus there, up to a short time ago, was the most eco¬ nomical that we had, 3,277,300 kilowatt-hours being generated in the combined plants in one day. That was on the 24th of December of last year. In the year 1915 the two plants generated 961,818,000 kilo¬ watt-hours, and the total en- Fig. 24. Quarry Street and Fisk Street Generating Stations, Chicago 28 POWER GENERATION AND DISTRIBUTION er gy generated to date by those two plants amounts to 5,814,- 162,000 kilowatt-hours. These figures will give you some idea of the enormous production that electrical energy has achieved in the larger cities of the country. Generating Units of Fisk Street Station. The view presented in Fig. 25 is a view of the first machines that were installed there, so far as their appearance is concerned. At the time we started to build the Fisk Street station we first ordered from the General Electric Company one 5,000-kilowatt machine. We had expected to put in four¬ teen machines—say 70,000 kilowatts. We were rather im¬ pressed with the Curtis turbine as developed by the General Electric Company. They had an experimental machine of some 250 or 500 kilowatts, and my friend Mr. Coffin, the president of the company, wanted me to give them an order for a machine capable of developing 1,000 kilowatts. I told him that we already had a large number of reciprocating- engine units much larger, and to go to a machine of a smaller size simply because it was novel would be a step backward. He finally agreed to take the risk of building a 5,000-kilowatt machine if I would take the risk of installing it, the under¬ standing being that if it would not work we were to return it, we to be out the cost of installation and the loss to our busi¬ ness and the General Electric Company to stand the cost of the turbine. It is rather interesting to note here in New Haven that at that time Professor Breckinridge, who was then the head of the engineering department of our state university (Illinois), assisted us in testing the first units at the Fisk Street station. We put in three units. The first one ran as high as 7,800 kilo¬ watts, and the other two about the same—not because they were intended by the manufacturer to develop that amount of power, but because the necessities of our business compelled us to get all the power out of them that we could generate. Then we installed a fourth machine of larger capacity, of about POWER GENERATION AND DISTRIBUTION 29 9,000 kilowatts, and paid a premium because the machine exceeded the guarantee. None of those four machines is shown in Fig. 25. The progress of the art was such that with practically the same boiler-room arrangements, a little larger grates, and a little higher stacks, we were able to operate 12,000-kilowatt units, so we scrapped the first four machines and installed 12,000- Fig. 25 . Turbo-Generators in Fisk Street Station, Chicago POWER GENERATION AND DISTRIBUTION 30 kilowatt units in their place. The view given is that of the later machines. I think that scrapping operation cost us up¬ ward of a million dollars, and I think it paid for itself in about three years owing to the advances made in turbine design. Let the Shoemaker Stick to His Last. It is rather interesting to note the difference in method of people who run the business of the manufacture of electrical Fig. 26. Boilers in Northwest Station, Chicago energy as a business and the method pursued by people who run the manufacture of electrical energy as a side-show. One of the most up-to-date steam-railroad systems in the United .States today* is probably the New York Central line. I think they have two stations equipped with precisely the same kind of apparatus as that which we discarded several years ago. What is the reason for that? Their business is to manu- POWER GENERATION AND DISTRIBUTION 31 Fig. 27 . Turbo-Generator ( 30,000 Kilowatts) in Northwest Station, Chicago 32 POWER GENERATION AND DISTRIBUTION facture transportation. They might just as well be in the business of manufacturing coal as to manufacture electrical energy. It is a mere side-show with them. True, it has given them less trouble than anything else, but, so to speak, they are letting the water flow over the dam day after day in their electrical apparatus, because it is not their business to get highly efficient results in generating electrical energy. The way railroad men make their balance sheet show up well is by finding out how to manufacture cheap transporta¬ tion, whether of dead freight or live freight, and the way we central-station men make our money is by manufacturing cheap energy. I do not know of any better illustration, or any better case where we can (if may he allowed to use slang) “hand one” to the steam-railroad company and quote the old adage that “a shoemaker had better stick to his last.” Several years ago there came out to Chicago a very dis¬ tinguished engineering commission for the purpose of gather¬ ing information to be used in designing a large plant. This commission decided to duplicate what we had-—not what we have—but what we had. And for fear they would not be able to run it they purloined one of our men to run it, and they are still running it. What they copied has been in the scrap heap for years. I think one of the machines which they copied is erected in the yard of the General Electric Com¬ pany at Schenectady as a sort of relic of ancient history. Running Into Large Figures. Fig. 26 is a view of one side of the boiler-room of one of our stations. If we had a complete view of the room you would see that the chutes carrying coal down on each side give quite a Gothic appearance to the room. The number of boilers is five. The heating surface for each boiler is 12,200 square feet; superheat, 200 degrees Fahrenheit; steam pressure, 250 pounds per square inch; capacity in pounds of steam per hour for each boiler, 50,000 pounds. For all five boilers 60,000 pounds of coal an hour is required. A view of a turbo-generator erected in the Northwest sta- POWER GENERATION AND DISTRIBUTION 33 tion, Chicago, is given in Fig. 27. It is of 25-cycle, 9,000-volt, 30,000-kilowatt capacity; total weight, 590 tons; length over all, 60 feet; width, 19 feet; revolu¬ tions per minute, 1,500; peripheral speed of revolv¬ ing field in feet per minute, 20,000. That class of ap¬ paratus has taken the place of the vertical turbine shown in previous views. Our practice is to run a machine of that character practically all the time. We get the best results and the lowest repair costs if it runs continuously, provided it is shut down a few hours a week to see that everything is in order. It is a class of machine which is being very largely used at this time and represents the most modern development. The diagram of Fig. 28 represents the capacity of generating units at various dates, and gives some idea of the progress in the mass¬ ing of production of energy. In 1887, 160 kilowatts; 1902, 3,500 kilowatts ; 1903, 5,000 kilowatts; 1915, 35,- 000 kilowatts. That repre¬ sents the progress that has been made. If there had Z o * i seven pounds per kilowatt-hour and going- down to 2.70 pounds. Another curve shows the kilowatt-hours generated, and a third the tons of coal burned. The diagram is indicative of what we have been able to do in the direction of conservation of coal. That results partly from the improvements in the prime movers, partly by the shutting down of small uneconomical stations, and the massing of production and distribution over very much wider areas. 1 think that while a great many of our well-intentioned friends have been shouting about the conservation of natural resources, the steam-turbine inventors and the designing engineers of the great power companies using steam as a prime source of power have probably done more to conserve the natural resources of this country, in so far as fuel is con¬ cerned, than has been done by all the agitation that has taken place upon the general subject of conservation. It is interesting to note that the saving in Chicago per unit for the fourteen years from 1900 to 1915 was equivalent to a saving for the year 1915 of 2,472,400 tons, or 58,000 carloads of coal per year, or fourteen loads of forty cars each per day. . Financial Data and Statistics. Fig. 42 gives you some financial figures—the total cost per dollar of income, the income per dollar of investment, the total operating cost per dollar of income, and the net earnings per dollar of investment. Some more financial information in another way is pre¬ sented in Fig. 43. This gives cost and income per kilowatt- hour sold. To the cost is added the necessary allowance for interest and depreciation. You will see how closely the cost and the income follow each other during a period of from 1902 to 1915. The kilowatt-hours sold per dollar of investment are also shown in Fig 43. When we were doing but a small whole¬ sale business we used to sell only two kilowatt-hours per dollar invested. Now we sell thirteen kilowatt-hours per dollar invested. POWER GENERATION AND DISTRIBUTION A very interesting diagram showing the diversity of large light-and-power customers is that of Fig. 44. It has always been assumed until this particular investigation was made that Fig. 44 Diversity in the Demands of Large Consumers the maximum demand of manufacturers and large users came at about the same time, but Fig. 44 shows this is not the case. Possibilities of the Future. Now as to the possibilities of this class of business. You will have to excuse me for referring so much to Chicago, but I have more definite information regarding the city of Chi¬ cago than I have in regard to any other place. The light-and- power business of the Commonwealth Edison Company is ap¬ proximately 338,000 kilowatts ; that of isolated plants is 264,500 kilowatts, and that of the steam railroads 125,700 kilowatts, making a total of 728,200 kilowatts. Our estimate is that at the present time we are doing about 46 per cent of the total possible business in the city of Chicago, and that if we had the entire possible business, instead of run¬ ning at a load factor of 40 or 41 per cent, we would probably POWER GENERATION AND DISTRIBUTION 53 have a load factor on the entire system of upwards of 50 to 60 per cent. What does that mean ? Broadly speaking, it means that the cost of carrying the necessary investment for a city of two millions and a half of people, that is, the interest cost and the depreciation cost of carrying the entire investment, if all the energy is produced under one organization, would be reduced approximately 33% per cent. That would indicate that at the present time where any form of energy is required —I do not care whether by steam or electricity or how it may be obtained—it is an economic waste for the individual spend¬ ing the money to try to produce that energy in a small way, and that the true function of the large electric-light-and- power companies of this country is to produce all the energy that is required in the community. In these days when so many of our operations between the cradle and the grave are being regulated I am somewhat inclined to think that the day will come when one of the regulating bodies will step in, insist on all energy being produced from central generating plants and tell the people who are guilty of economic waste that they must stop. Such regulating body will say that the country cannot afford to have them throwing away money, which indirectly must be sapping the country’s wealth, as if equipment is employed unnecessarily, if fuel is wastefully employed, if labor is wastefully employed, all those things must be harmful to the general wealth of the state. Broad Aspects of tiie Question. I firmly believe that the doctrine that it has been my privilege to preach for a good many years, and which I am glad to say is becoming more popular—that is to say, the massing of production, the massing of distribution, the selling of energy for all kinds of purposes on a very large scale from one system—I firmly believe that in advocating that course, while I am advocating a course that is very advan¬ tageous to the class of property that it is my privilege to have charge of, at the same time I am advocating a course that is 54 POWER GENERATION AND DISTRIBUTION very advantageous to,the whole community and to the whole state. To give you some idea of how these figures mount up I have had worked up the data derived from Census statistics on the same basis on which we have worked it out for the city of Chicago, and applied it to the whole country. Suppos¬ ing we take all the settled areas of the United States wherever there is great density of population, practically everywhere this side of the Mississippi and practically everywhere the other side of the Rocky Mountains (all you have to leave out is the desert country and the purely agricultural country), and let us assume that all the work is done electrically. Let us assume that every part of the country where the density of the population justifies it, whether it is in a community or whether it is state-wide, or whether it occupies a larger area and goes beyond the confines of a state—let us assume the electricity-supply business is all put under a series of central organizations, and what do we find? Great Savings That Could be Effected. We find that it takes about 68,000,000 to 70,000,000 horse¬ power of non-coincident demand; that the coincident load would be about 47,000,000 horse-power, and that the diversity would be upwards of 20,000,000 horse-power. If you will cap¬ italize the labor that would be saved; if you will figure the investment cost of the 20,000,000 of horse-power that would be saved; if you will figure out the value of the fuel that would not be used—the savings are staggering; and the possibilities that this business ofifers are almost beyond the dreams of the most enthusiastic figurer. I happened to learn only a few weeks ago of a case in a city not very different from any other city and not a very large city, in a territory where the population is not so dense as it is in this Connecticut country, and where the amount of energy used is not as great. In the city itself the electrical interests, both for light and power and for transportation, are in one organization. Outside the city, in the surrounding POWER GENERATION AND DISTRIBUTION territory, most of the light and power and transportation interests are in another organization. In the city the maximum load comes in the afternoon. In the surrounding territory the maximum load comes in the morning. In the city they, so to speak, allow the water to flow over the dam all day long except in the afternoon, and outside the city they allow it to flow over the dam all day long except in the morning. If you will capitalize the saving in operation in just that one district, with a population relatively small, and add the saving in investment that would take place by combining the generation of energy in that small piece of territory of about 100 square miles, the saving will be between six and seven million dollars. Where teie Real Danger Lies. Yet some persons would tell us that if that is allowed to be done it will produce a combination that may be dangerous to the state. It is not dangerous to the state to let the money go to waste, to waste its resources and its capital; but it is said to be dangerous to the state to allow an organization to double its size, even though that organization is regulated by a commission of the state appointed or approved by the state Legislature. I think that is the kind of danger to the state that I shall have to spend my days in advocating as long as I live; I think that it is to the highest possible advantage to the state, /that it is a real contribution to the better management of the country’s affairs. In closing I cannot do better than to tell the young men here who are expecting to make the class of busi¬ ness with which I am proud to be associated their life’s work that I do not know of any business in this country in which there are greater possibilities, greater opportunities, for men not only to serve themselves but to serve their fellows. I know of no walk in life, public or private, in the industrial world, in which there are greater possibilities of national advantage and community advantage than in the business that I have tried to tell you something about this evening. . : : I' ; ; >■ A l m : : ' f k • - * -h v: • b-nm - r J\f ' • • If 'i'. f l ' ' It ■ ! : l • l ,4 ' >''•’• ti vt# : • ( . >- r • ; • V* * * 1; . A ' ? t [. . i ’. > , • t li / 1 : ’ r i J / * ‘ S' f -♦ *’* V „ 1 . v: 41siVl#f 1 s- '.V.^'i.ivi ! -Vf;n: