TRANSFORMERS

When Thomas Edison created the first electric utility in 1882, he used dc to transmit power from generator to load. Unfortunately, at the time it was not possible to change dc voltages easily from one level to another, which meant

TRANSFORMERS 37 transmission was at the relatively low voltages of the dc generators. As we have seen, transmitting significant amounts of power at low voltage means that high currents must flow, resulting in large i2R power losses in the wires as well as high voltage drops between power plant and loads. The result was that power plants had to be located very close to loads. In those early days, it was not uncommon for power plants in cities to be located only a few blocks apart.