. Bell telephone magazine . so describe anotherutility industry that is even bigger, justas complex, and just as vital to our wayof life—the electric power industry. During the past few months, its beenmy exciting assignment to go out andstudy our fellow utilities—to learn oftheir progress, problems, and hopes forthe future, and of course, to gain a better understanding on behalf of Bell Systempeople of the communications servicesthe electric utilities require. Talking withleaders in management and engineeringin the industry soon brings out how closewe are in the basic issues facing us in thef
. Bell telephone magazine . so describe anotherutility industry that is even bigger, justas complex, and just as vital to our wayof life—the electric power industry. During the past few months, its beenmy exciting assignment to go out andstudy our fellow utilities—to learn oftheir progress, problems, and hopes forthe future, and of course, to gain a better understanding on behalf of Bell Systempeople of the communications servicesthe electric utilities require. Talking withleaders in management and engineeringin the industry soon brings out how closewe are in the basic issues facing us in thefuture—growth and technological it brings out, too, the magnitude ofthe challenge to us in the communica-tions business if we are to serve electricpower utilities adequately. ■ Lets take a look at the electricpower industry. It had its small be-ginning in 1880, when the Rochester, Electric Light Company installeda water driven generator to operate elec- 15 COMPOSITION OFELECTRIC POWERSYSTEMS 1962. 969 COOPERATIVESLESS SOURCE NATIONAl POWfJ SUIVCt trie arc lights, making a charge of $.75per night for each light. The famousPearl Street station installed by ThomasA. in New York began servingcustomers in downtown New York in1882. From these modest beginnings, ithas grown to become the largest today. Electric power in the United Statesis furnished by some 3,600 different sys-tems which vary widelv in size and or- ganizational makeup. As shown above,the 480 investor-owned systems togetherfurnish the bulk of the service; theyown just over three-fourths of thegenerating capacity. The remaining 24per cent of capacity is owned by overthree thousand public, cooperative andFederal systems. The keynote of the industrys progresshas been steady growth due to the con-stant increase in the use of its products. 16 Total consumption has just aboutdoubled every ten years, closely match-ing our experience in the telephone basi-ness
Size: 1586px × 1575px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookauthoramerican, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, bookyear1922
