What happened in the Beginning?

[SparkyTris]

how was electricity first supplied to consumers? who paid for it to be "rolled out", so to speak?

These days - in the UK anyway - one expects that any given usable house/building will normally have a supply of electricity (usually metered), from the "grid".

If you build a new house, it's up to you to pay a large utility company (scottish & southern for us) to run a cable to the house for you. This may well mean that a new/uprated pole transformer is needed, for which one also pays. This seems fair and clear.

however this was patently not always so. Most (?) houses in the UK pre-date a large electrical distribution system, so there must have been a time when companies (?) supplying electricity needed to get people using in order to start a revenue stream. Who paid for streets/lanes to be connected up initially?

I was recently at a friends' farm, which has in my own memory developed from little more than a croft into a big beef farm. when I was a kid, there was a 3-bedroom farmhouse and a small cowshed. There is now a large agricultural complex, with facilities to keep 200 beasts under cover through the winter. And 2 family houses. and all the associated workshops, garages, equipment. One might reasonably expect a 3 phase supply in place, but no, it's still the original pole transformer (5kVA I believe?) which was probably installed when grid electric first was rolled out here in the 1970s. That trafo must be running warm on some days!

 

[ricicle]

Before the set-up of the National Grid electricity was generated and distributed locally in smaller systems usually per town or areas of towns.
Gradually as the systems and demand got bigger then certain generating stations in towns were outputting enough to enable lines to be ran to other towns/areas further away.
Eventually the decision was taken to create the grid and the cross conutry pylons we see today were gradually installed (most older systems were on the wooden poles distributing at 66kV)
Some of the older systems within towns were distributed at 2kV DC and the substations and equipment were unsafe with fatalities/injuries common.

 

[17thman]

"what Happened in the beginning"?

A big bang.

"what will happen in the end?

A big bang

 

[SparkyTris]

so who paid for the initial rollout of cabling and metering equipment to consumers?

"eventually the decision was taken to create the grid" - who took this decision?

to what extent was local or central government involved in it all?

 

[EFLImpudence]

so who paid for the initial rollout of cabling and metering equipment to consumers?

I expect it was like all business.
Firstly, they install some so that they get the advertising and revenue for the power sold and then when more people decide they would like it, too, they have to pay.

"eventually the decision was taken to create the grid" - who took this decision?

The government.

Plenty on the web - start here.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-e...s-when-the-problems-really-began-2113229.html

 

[TicklyT]

The world's first 'public' electricity supply was reckoned to be in Godalming, Surrey.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/42417027@N05/4540512888/

 

[ban-all-sheds]

"What happened in the beginning"?

In the Beginning... Was the Command Line.

 

[chivers67]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla We've alot to thank this bloke for

 

[ericmark]

Nikola Tesla was the guy who pioneered AC. There were some DC systems in the UK I do remember Llwyngwril in what is now called Gwynedd had a 110 vdc power station when I was a kid and there were wires running out also to local farms. Carn-gadell-uchaf was supplied from this power station and by time it reached that farm the volt drop resulted in lights being rather dim.

The enterprising guy who ran the power station had paid for the overhead power lines one would hope he got his return before the national grid replaced it. There was a small diesel driven generator by the side of the river (afon) Gwril and I think it was originally water driven?

On the Falklands there is still no national grid and each farm has it's own generator and I suppose there is nothing to stop one in this country from returning to that method. Some countries do not permit one to generate one own power but here there is nothing to stop one.

The Sterling engine since the development of the wobble shaft has moved from being a kids toy to being used to produce electric power from what would have been just waisted and is both used as a standalone and as part of a gas central heating boiler. So we may see a return to local generation using not only wind and solar power but also external combustion engines.

Boats have always needed to generate their own power and some of the devices designed for boats is now being used on land. We are looking at the cost of transporting power v cost of local generation and the gap is closing.

 

[plugwash]

On the Falklands there is still no national grid and each farm has it's own generator and I suppose there is nothing to stop one in this country from returning to that method. Some countries do not permit one to generate one own power but here there is nothing to stop one.

mmm, the thing is while people may bitch about the few grand a grid hookup costs compared to the noise/maintinace/higher cost per unit of electricty of a local diesel generator it seems like a good idea.

CHP setups aren't a bad idea but i'll bet even with them people will still want to keep the grid hookup as a demand buffer and they only make sense as long as gas remains an economical fuel source.

Solar PV and small wind turbines only make sense to customers because of ridiculous government subsidies which will probablly dissapear sooner or later.

 

[efiste2]

people will still want to keep the grid hookup as a demand buffer

Most CHP schemes are both IMPORT and EXPORT so that extra capacity can be fed into the grid. But as Plugwash says, sometimes the bigger companies have a separate incoming supply for use in shutdown periods or faults etc etc. We Installed a backup 33kv supply many years ago for What was the huge ICI plant at Runcorn who, today have two huge CHP stations on site. and as far as im aware its still ready and waiting today. We have also installed quite a few mini CHP schemes at a certain chain of fitness centres and also a couple of small biomass schemes too...

 

[ban-all-sheds]

We have also installed quite a few mini CHP schemes at a certain chain of fitness centres...

They have loads of people who want to work very hard at running on treadmills, lifting/pulling/pushing things - surely there's some dots waiting to be joined up there....

 

[ericmark]

We have also installed quite a few mini CHP schemes at a certain chain of fitness centres...

They have loads of people who want to work very hard at running on treadmills, lifting/pulling/pushing things - surely there's some dots waiting to be joined up there....

Film called "Soylent Green" it is a 1973 American science fiction film directed by Richard Fleischer and starring Charlton Heston, and in his final film, Edward G. Robinson. They peddle the bike to make lights work.

 

[JohnW2]

We have also installed quite a few mini CHP schemes at a certain chain of fitness centres...

They have loads of people who want to work very hard at running on treadmills, lifting/pulling/pushing things - surely there's some dots waiting to be joined up there....

I think those dots have already been joined - see this and many more.

Kind Regards, John.

 

[SparkyTris]

The Godalming project was very interesting, particularly that they couldnt get enough custom to make it viable. and it fizzled out initially.
I wonder how skeptical the public were to having electric energy indoors in the beginning, I imagine that many people equated it with lightning.

It makes sense to me that heavily populated, fashionable places, such as SE England (if you'll forgive me), would rapidly take up the luxury of electricity, then the market gets to "critical mass" and everybody wants it, and the electricity generation/distribution organisations start to see a return on initial outlay.
However, I don't believe that the same supply/demand laws would have applied in very sparsely populated rural areas.