Holborn Viaduct power station, named theEdison Electric Light Station, was the world's firstcoal-fired power station generating electricity for public use.[1][2] It was built at number 57Holborn Viaduct in centralLondon, byThomas Edison'sEdison Electric Light Company.
The plant began running on 12 January 1882 (144 years ago) (1882-01-12),[3] three years after the invention of the carbon-filamentincandescent light bulb. It burnt coal to drive asteam engine which drove a 27-tonne (27-long-ton; 30-short-ton), 125horsepower (93 kW) generator which produceddirect current (DC) at 110 volts.[3]
It initially lit 968 16-candle incandescent lamps to providestreet lighting fromHolborn Circus toSt. Martin's Le Grand, which was later expanded to 3,000 lamps.[4][5] The power station also provided electricity for private residences, which may have included nearbyEly Place.[6] Having run at a significant loss the station closed in September 1886,[4] and the lamps were converted back to gas.[7]
Edison opened a second coal-fired power station in September 1882 in the United States, atPearl Street Station inNew York City.[4]
In 1878, theCity of London Corporation had installed 16 electricarc lamps over the viaduct, but the experiment was discontinued within six months, and the bridge returned togas lighting.[4] TheVictoria Embankment was lit with electric lamps at around the same time, using theYablochkov candles demonstrated at theExposition Universelle in Paris in 1878.
The Holborn Viaduct project was preceded by two months by an electricity supply from awater wheel inGodalming, Surrey – the world's first public electricity supply. This hydroelectric project was on a much smaller scale, however, with a 10 horsepower (7.5 kW) generator running 4 arc lamps and 27 incandescent lamps.[3]
Lacking the legal precedent to lay underground cables (digging the street was the sole prerogative of the gas companies),[4] Edison's associateEdward Hibberd Johnson discovered culverts existed on the Holborn Viaduct which would allow for electrical cables to be laid.[3]
The American-built 'Jumbo' generator (named afterP.T. Barnum'scircus elephant)[4] was driven by aPorter-Allen steam engine built byBabcock & Wilcox.
The station was on Crown property and so could not be extended, and was running at a significant annual loss.[4] It closed in September 1886 (139 years ago) (1886-09) and the lamps were converted back to gas.[7] The building in which it was housed was destroyed by bombing duringthe Blitz, and the large building called 60 Holborn Viaduct has since subsumed the site.
51°31′01.91″N0°06′18.25″W / 51.5171972°N 0.1050694°W /51.5171972; -0.1050694
