THE ELECTRIC AGE

Evening Star, Issue 19763, 13 January 1928, Page 2

THE ELECTRIC AGE

BRITAIN'S SCHEME SUPER-POWER ZONE The electric age lias been a long time coming to Britain. But the announcement this week of the main outline of the scheme prepared for a “ superpower zone” in South-eastern England brings it appreciably nearer. The scheme deals with an area of nearly 9,000 square miles, and will eventually form part of a Jinking-up scheme embracing the whole of Great Britain. By every method of comparison London, which is covered by the new scheme, has been singularly backward in the development of electricity. The multiplication of small undertakings and the high cost of power resulting from uneconomic conditions of supply have been responsible for the slow rate of growth. The new scheme, by introducing largo scale production through the elimination of such undertakings, as far as power generation is concerned, should oifect a revolution in power process in a few years. London has moved far slower than Paris, is far behind Chicago, and still further behind New York. _ Paris, after three companies had gained control over the area, showed an increase of 200 per cent, in the period, 1920-26, from a total of 535,000,000 units to 1,560,000,000 units. New York, already highly developed, almost doubled its output over the period 1919-26, the 1926 total being 7,100,000,000 units. Chicago has shown an even higher rate of expansion. On the other hand, London only doubled its output in six years, and the present figure, 1,600,000,000 units, is merely equal to that recorded for Paris, half that of Chicago, and less than a fourth of that of New York. According to the new scheme, London will have reached 6,000,000,000 units by 1940

Thus, if Britain lias lagged in electricity because she led in steam, the arrears are now being overtaken. Tbo first area in which the Electricity Board began work was Central Scotland. It has now turned to the south, and its most difficult problem. The home counties area is densely populated, and in its electrical supply badly organised. There is a wide range of industries, with frequent changes caused by new developments and ■ migration froni elsewhere. The whole tendency of the moment, it is said, is for the centre of industrial gravity to move south again. Within the present scheme is comprised an area going as far north as Peterborough and Bedford, and ns far south as Brighton. More than a quarter of the population of Great Britain is included, covering the whole of the industrial south, and a groat area of farm land.

Some day Britain will be irrigated with cheap power through one co-ordi-nated system of main transmission lines feeding a subsidiary network. The basic principles of the present section of this great scheme will be limitation of production to a few selected generating stations with a low fuel consumption and high operating efficiency, the construction of super-power stations to meet future expansion, and the construction of extra high-pressure transmission lines forming a scries of rings round London, with a second scries of medium pressure lines radiatiug out from the main system, to supply the vast distribution network already in existence, and to tap new and undeveloped areas. The South Eastern super-power zone, the one now to be developed, will extend over 120 miles, and_ will include the whole of Kent, with its new coalfields. More than 100 generating stations, from tiny plant aggregating 100 horse-power to modern super-power stations, ns at Barking and Deptford, developing more than 200,000 horsepower, have been scattered without system or method over the region. Few of them are interconnected, and few of them can generate power at all cheaply nr effectively. These generating stations will be reduced to eighteen, and a system of overhead transmission lines, on steel lattice towers, will convey current at a pressure of 132,000 volts. It is estimated that by 1934 the cost to the board and the owners of the generating stations will have amounted to more than £12,000,000, hut a saving of £1,500,000 a year on generating costs is expected. The result, too, according to the electricity commissioners’ calculations, will be to reduce the average cost of electricity in the area from 2.2 d a unit to 1.25 d a unit. But that will not be until 1940. There will also be a considerable reduction in the quantity of coal used for generation. It is now proposed to construct two giant power stations at Battersea and Chiswick, as well as a smaller station in the north, and to select thirteen stations out of the total already in existence, retain temporarily fifteen, and ultimately to close down 107 stations. By 1940 the capacity of all stations, including additions and extensions, should he about 3,500,000 horse-power, onefonrth of the total contemplated for the whole country. Linked up with the Midlands, Lancashire, and Yorkshire, and the Northeast Coast area, as it will ultimately he, this South-eastern super-power zone may bring to reality the conception of Britain ns a single economic unit. In London there is another aspect that has appealed to the popular mind. Through the diminished consumption of coal, owing to tho concentration of electricity in a smaller number of better placed stations, there may be a noticeable lessening of the pollution of the atmosphere. When electricity has'definitely taken the place of coal in the domestic hearth we may begin at last to part company with the worst of the London fogs. That alone should bo a social fact of tbo first magnitude.