I think we would have been much father down the independent home road by now, had we had listened to Edison instead of Westinghouse.
You are kidding right? Neither had it right, Tesla had it right with AC. Edison has his DC system. It was made for one purpose, to sell Edison DC light-bulb. NYC was on Edison's DC system up until 2007 when it was shut down and replaced with AC.
Bipolar high voltage DC is great for transmission from point A to point B, and combining windmill output power, but for distribution, DC does not work. To difficult and expensive to regulate prone to interruptions from active equipment.
Gentlemen:
The Tesla Polyphase AC System was the right system at the right time for the state of technology when it came out in 1871, and easily up to the end of the 20th century. It was and remains brilliant. When he worked for Edison, Tesla tried to convince him to consider the approach, but Edison was already too invested in his DC distribution infrastructure to back out and he refused. So Tesla left Edison's workshops, patented the Polyphase System himself and went to work for George Westinghouse, who licensed Tesla's patents at a rate that could have made Tesla very wealthy. Could have.
Edison's incandescent light bulb designs did not care whether it ran off of AC or DC.
Tesla's AC Polyphase System reduced power transmission losses by many orders of magnitude by boosting transmission line voltages tremendously, reducing resistive losses by reducing current. Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, it was possible to send electical power hundreds and then thousands of miles, with good regulation, rather than just a few city blocks, as with DC. Transmission line voltages were then stepped down for home use by means of simple, reliable iron and wire transformers - well understood and easy to produce in those days. There was no practical way to do the same thing with DC - no solid state inverters/voltage converters. Motor/generators were required - motors with BRUSHES that wore down quickly.
Not only did Tesla invent the polyphase AC electical distribution system, but as a capstone invented the brushless induction motor - only ONE moving part. Remarkably simple in execution and brilliantly elegant in concept. It was NOT an obvious concept.
Then Tesla literally gave away his patents to George Westinghouse during his "current wars" with Edison, to make sure the world would benefit from his truely incredible inventions. Because Edison's attacks on Westinhouse were driving him to the brink of insolvency. Releasing the patent rights and lucrative royalties to Westinhouse changed the financial balance in Westinghouse's favor. After many legal battles, Edison jumped on the AC bandwagon, too. He HAD to, in order to grow the electrical grid in a practical way where everybody could afford to use it. More customers, more profit. His backers knew that.
Tesla lived out his later life as a poor man, oddly enough living well at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City, supported by J.P. Morgan, who hoped for a new "miracle" Tesla invention - like Broadcast Power. Look up "Long Island Broadcast Power Station" for some interesting reading.
Today we have a mix of both AC and DC long distance transmission lines - because we have the means to efficiently convert DC and AC voltages up and down in voltage and to different frequencies using better technologies. Still, AC remains strong in long distance distribution. And DC lines require periodic cleaning - a very dangerous job - due to the dust and debris they accumulate due to their fixed and very high electrical charge.
Edison was a man who achieved genius through trial and error and by renting the minds of other extremely capable people in his Menlo Park invention factory. Much of what he "invented" he never understood very well. Edison contributed the vision of what COULD be and sold it well, yielding the financial means to realize success, and that, by itself, was brilliant. He used people, defamed them, schemed constantly and bragged about cheating (even at telegraph/morse code testing). A true business tycoon of the day.
Tesla WAS genius, pure and simple. And like many extreme examples of this type of talent, his primary contributions came early in his life and were never surpassed by his later efforts. Making a concept viable - putting it into practice - is what he lived for. And he was a pretty strange and complex man.
George Westinghouse, whom Tesla allied himself with after leaving Edison, was also a brilliant man, inventor and humanitarian. Westinghouse built his company on his own invention of "fail safe" air brakes for trains, whose previous feeble mechanical brakes were responsible for many, many fatal crashes. He saw a need and figured out a way to fill it that changed railroading forever. As with Tesla, we still use his designs today. And when hard economic times hit, George Westinghouse found a way to preserve the jobs of many of his employees, even if he had to reduce pay or working hours for a time, when most firms were simply letting their workers go without regard for their families. Another remarkable man. Not perfect, but very, very admirable.
Nothing shabby about the Tesla Polyphase System, even today.
Brian - K6BRN