ORGANISING ELECTRICAL RESOURCES

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 214, 4 June 1919, Page 8

ORGANISING ELECTRICAL RESOURCES

SUPER-STATIONS IN BRITAIN. There is much discussion in Great Britain of super-stations—thai is to say, of electric generating plants larger than anything yet installed, and supplying currei'it in unlimited quantities to electric supply undertakings, railways, steel works, textile mills, and othe'r btg users over a very wide area. Electric supply in, in fact, being treated on a national basis, and enterprise wi. that scnlo implies manufacturing firms capable of turning out steam turbines of 50,000 kilowatts each, and constructing transformers, cables, and switch-gear for transmission of electric power at very high voltage. During the war the electrical manufacturers of Great Britain have been fortunate in their freedom to develop toward* this 'position. So enormous has been tins demand for electric power and electrical plant of every description that the war hiis been a powerful stimuliw to their productive work. Incidentally, they liave been reorganising themselves into larger grouns, each working along certain definite lines and capable ot undertaking the manufacture of nil types of power"station plant, cables, telephones, meters, lamps, ami innumerable other ac' cessories, the most ambitious schemes of railway electrification, complete contracts r for hydroelectric and other power schemes, and for the electrical operation of collieries, ■ textile nulls, and eo on. The electric cable makers of Great an> tain who «et. Hid standard of excellence in electrical transmission of power, have ■rreattv developed their output during.the war 'In addition to those large combinations there aro many strong firms special' isine in various types of electrical plant and apparatus and continuously perfecting such machinery as steam, ens. and oil engines, electric motors, transformers and instruments, switch-gear, heating and cookincr. apparatus. The British electrical manufacturing industry is, in fact, still better equipped than it was before the war to meet foreign competition nt home and abroad, mid ulso to carry out even- form of electrical enterprise, from the 'financing thereof fo the operation when completed. Ever-increasing attention is nlfo bcing civen to research, both bv individual electric firms and by Hie iwlustrv generallv, in nssorintion _ villi the Institution of Electrical Lngineers and other scientific bodies.