where was the first power station built and why
Cragside, England
title: Power station text: increasing use of cleaner renewable sources such as solar, wind, wave and hydroelectric. In 1870 a hydroelectric power station was designed and built by Lord Armstrong at Cragside, England. It used water from lakes on his estate to power Siemens dynamos. The electricity supplied power to lights, heating, produced hot water, ran an elevator as well as labor-saving devices and farm buildings. In the early 1870s Belgian inventor Zénobe Gramme invented a generator powerful enough to produce power on a commercial scale for industry. In the autumn of 1882, a central station providing public power was built in Godalming, England. title: Power station text: in 1890. The station used reciprocating steam engines to turn direct-current generators. Because of the DC distribution, the service area was small, limited by voltage drop in the feeders. In 1886 George Westinghouse began building an alternating current system that used a transformer to step up voltage for long-distance transmission and then stepped it back down for indoor lighting, a more efficient and less expensive system which is similar to modern system. The War of Currents eventually resolved in favor of AC distribution and utilization, although some DC systems persisted to the end of the 20th century. DC systems with title: History of electric power transmission text: and others, began operation of the world’s first commercial central station hydroelectric power plant, Saturday, July 24, 1880, getting power from Wolverine Chair and Furniture Company’s water turbine. It operated a 16-light Brush electric dynamo lighting several storefronts in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It is the earliest predecessor of Consumers Energy of Jackson, Michigan. In December 1880, Brush Electric Company set up a central station to supply a length of Broadway with arc lighting. By the end of 1881, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Montreal, Buffalo, San Francisco, Cleveland and other cities had Brush arc lamp systems, producing public light well title: Power station text: It was proposed after the town failed to reach an agreement on the rate charged by the gas company, so the town council decided to use electricity. It used hydroelectric power for street lighting and household lighting. The system was not a commercial success and the town reverted to gas. In 1882 the world's first coal-fired public power station, the Edison Electric Light Station, was built in London, a project of Thomas Edison organized by Edward Johnson. A Babcock & Wilcox boiler powered a 125-horsepower steam engine that drove a 27-ton generator. This supplied electricity to premises in the area title: Nuclear power plant text: 1954, the world's first nuclear power station to generate electricity for a power grid started operations at the Soviet city of Obninsk. The world's first full scale power station, Calder Hall in England, opened on October 17, 1956. The world's first full scale power station solely devoted to electricity production (Calder Hall was also meant to produce plutonium), Shippingport power plant in the United States, connected to the grid on December 18, 1957. The key components common to current nuclear power plants are: The conversion to electrical energy takes place indirectly, as in conventional thermal power stations. The fission in