The Battle of the Currents J. Michael Mooney One hundred years ago man stood at the brink of a new era. Electricity held the promise of a more rewarding and productive future for both home and industry. Edison's 90% efficient dynamo was generating electricity in the U.S. and in England. Edison's electric light and a few electric motors were the only appliances thus far available, with such basics as volt meters and ammeters still on the drawing boards. A bitter controversy erupted between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse as to the voltage level and current selection to be used in implementing this newfound technology. The "Battle of the Currents" raged from 1885 to 1893. Edison firmly believed that voltage levels should remain low (about 40 Volts) to preclude the danger of electrocution, and in the "smooth and continuous power of DC which could be stored in batteries and used as needed." Edison warned that "high tension alternating current was exceedingly dangerous and unmanageable." Westinghouse had his sights set on large commercial applications, not the least of which was large scale distribution of electricity as a commodity. At the peak of the Battle to demonstrate the danger, an Edison employee toured the country electrocuting stray dogs with alternating current - "Westinghousing them" he said. A Serbian engineer, Nikola Tesla, who had come to the U.S. in 1884 and found employment with Edison, opted to join forces with Westinghouse. It was Tesla who began to invent large motors, and later polyphase devices to operate from alternating current. The massive power available at Niagara Falls, Tesla's ac inventions, and the huge power market at Buffalo, NY, 22 miles away tipped the scales in favor of alternating current. Edison had lost the "Battle of the Currents." BEGIN SIDE BAR CONDENSED FROM 1982 ISSUE OF (NOW EXTINCT) SOLAR AGE MAGAZINE Edison's Rural House When Thomas A. Edison was asked whether the blessings of electric power could be extended to rural homes unreached by utility, he turned his attention to the problem and came up with an answer like Gen Set Plus. A demonstration project called The Edison Twentieth Century Suburban Residence was opened to the public in 1912 in Lewellyn Park, New Jersey, with electricity provided from twenty-seven 150 amp/hr batteries kept charged by a 4hp gas engine generator (housed in the stable). The house must have been a marvel. Sixty-four light fixtures and lamps gave it a degree of illumination rare in those days, even in electrified city homes. The list of appliances is impressive, even by 1982(8) standards: vacuum cleaner, washer, ringer, and iron, refrigerator, stove, broiler, toaster, perk, and teapot, egg-boiler, baby bottle warmer, and hot shave mug. The bedrooms had bed warmers, the billiard room had a movie machine, the living room had a phonograph, and the library had a dictating machine! Chicks were hatched in an incubator-brooder in the stable. "Edison saw the efficiency and economy of storing power from a part-time source in batteries, and having it available on a full-time basis." END SIDE BAR Today, with thousands of people dead from electrocution and hundreds of monopolistic power companies at our throats, we have begun to look back. We have readdressed the 1885 task of designing low voltage DC appliances, refined the 1839 discovery called photovoltaics, and we are moving toward Edison's vision of physical safety and financial independence. Edison lost the battle, but he is about to win the war.