Excerpt from Continental Electric Light Central Stations: With Notes on the Methods in Actual Practice for Distributing Electricity in Towns

IN publishing this description of Continental Electric Light Central Stations the writer had a twofold object, first, to enable the members of lighting committees and others taking up the question of the introduction of electricity to obtain a rapid survey of what has been done abroad, both on a large and small scale and, secondly, to enable electrical engineers to follow those arrangements for distributing electricity which differ from the usual English practice.

After visiting the Frankfort Electrical Exhibition the greatest sceptic ought to have been convinced that, however forward the art of electric lighting may be here, our foreign neighbours are quite up to date, and, quoting the words of Professor Forbes, That to ensure the best success of electric lighting schemes now on hand we should bury our pride a little and try to obtain the experience of foreign countries.

The idea of putting forward a description of the latest electrical installations is due to the Committee of the recent Frankfort Exhibition, who asked the principal German electrical firms and other users of electric light to explain the systems adopted these reports were combined in a work entitled Die Versorgung von Stadten mit Elektrischem Strom, which was presented to the members of the congress of municipal authorities on the occasion of their visit to Frankfort. With the permission of the contributors, the writer availed himself of much of the information, also has republished many of the working drawings, photographs and sketches of the electrical distributing arrangements. To this is added a description of some central stations which he has visited during the past two years, the various installations having been grouped under two heads - Part I., High Pressure Part II., Low Pressure.

As the local authorities of many small towns have taken great interest in the electric light, it was thought desirable to include minor installations as well as those larger and more important; it is interesting to note that owing to the use of water power the working cost of the former is, as a rule, very low.

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