Milestones:Revoked and Milestones:Chivilingo Hydroelectric Plant, 1897: Difference between pages

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Chivilingo Hydroelectric Plant, 1897

Lota, Chile, October 2001, IEEE Chile Section

The 1897 430 kW Chivilingo Plant was the first hydroelectric plant in Chile and the second in South America. A 10 km line fed the Lota coal mines and the railway extracting minerals 12 km from shore under the sea. It represented a new key technology and a new source of electrical energy in the region as a tool for economic development. Chivilingo demonstrated the advantages of industrial use of electricity and hastened its widespread adoption in Chile.

The plaque can be viewed at the Chivilingo plant, 14 km south of the town of Lota, Chile.

Studies on the feasibility of building a hydro plant in the site were initiated in 1893. The increasing need for power that was cheaper and easily adapted to mine underground use drove the Lota coal mine company to develop a study of alternatives for this purpose. Engineer William E. Raby traveled to the United States and Europe to assess the use of electricity generation and transmission. The availability of the Chivilingo hydro resources arose as a better alternative to a steam plant. Electricity for driving motors for coal mine exploitation under the sea had many advantages over other sources of power (coal included). Alternating current to feed three phase motors was seen as the most economic, easily managed, and less prone to accidents, solution for work power inside the mines.

An international tender was made, with proposals requested to the main US and Germany consultant firms, for both the hydraulic and electric installations. Total freedom was given in relation to power transmission system to be used. A Pelton turbine was specified as a requirement. The civil works and the aqueduct were to be built by the Lota company.

Work to build the Chivilingo power station started in 1896 and it was inaugurated in 1897. It was the first hydroelectric power plant in Chile and the second in South America.

Thomas A. Edison supposedly designed the plant. The North American company Consolidated Co. built it and the electrical equipment was provided by Schuckert & Co., from Nürnberg, Germany.

The "El Sur" newspaper brought the news to all of Chile and helped to inform other countries in the region.The plant was in operation for 78 years (from 1897 to 1975), in its later years interconnected to the main Chilean Central Interconnected System.

Chivilingo was declared a historical monument by the government of Chile on 25 October 1990, and published in the Official Gazette (Diario Fiscal) Number 33837 on 6 December 1990.

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-== Marconi's Early Wireless Experiments, 1895  ==
+== Chivilingo Hydroelectric Plant, 1897  ==
-Salvan, Switzerland - 26 September 2003 - [[IEEE Switzerland Section History|IEEE Switzerland Section]]
+Lota, Chile, October 2001, [[IEEE Chile Section History|IEEE Chile Section]]
-[[Image:Marconi's Early Wireless Experiments use this one for actual milestone page.jpg|thumb]]
+[[Image:Chivilingo hydroelectric plant.jpg|thumb]]
-''On this spot in 1895, with local assistance, [[Guglielmo Marconi]] carried out some of the first [[Wireless Telegraphy|wireless]] experiments. He first transmitted a signal from this "Shepherdess Stone" over a few meters and later, following one and a half months of careful adjustments, over a distance of up to one and a half kilometers.
+''The 1897 430 kW Chivilingo Plant was the first hydroelectric plant in Chile and the second in South America. A 10 km line fed the Lota coal mines and the railway extracting minerals 12 km from shore under the sea. It represented a new key technology and a new source of electrical energy in the region as a tool for economic development. Chivilingo demonstrated the advantages of industrial use of electricity and hastened its widespread adoption in Chile.''
-This was the beginning of Marconi´s pivotal involvement in wireless radio.''
-'''The plaque can be viewed in the town of Salvan, Switzerland, attached to the famous Shepherdess Stone.'''
+'''The plaque can be viewed at the Chivilingo plant, 14 km south of the town of Lota, Chile.'''
-The village of Salvan, Switzerland was known in the last years of the 19th century as a health resort. Located in the southwest of Switzerland in the Swiss Alps, very close to the France border, it was accessible only by a narrow mule path, nicknamed "route de Mont". Marconi, at the age of 21, visited Salvan in the Summer of 1895. It was suggested that he visited the resort to treat a respiratory ailment.
+Studies on the feasibility of building a hydro plant in the site were initiated in 1893. The increasing need for power that was cheaper and easily adapted to mine underground use drove the Lota coal mine company to develop a study of alternatives for this purpose. Engineer William E. Raby traveled to the United States and Europe to assess the use of electricity generation and transmission. The availability of the Chivilingo hydro resources arose as a better alternative to a steam plant. Electricity for driving motors for coal mine exploitation under the sea had many advantages over other sources of power (coal included). Alternating current to feed three phase motors was seen as the most economic, easily managed, and less prone to accidents, solution for work power inside the mines.
-Marconi's equipment consisted of a [[Batteries|battery]], a Ruhmkorff induction coil, a Righi spark generator and an antenna. His goal: transmit a signal without a metallic connection. He set up his experiments on Pierre Bergère (the Shepherdess Stone). Marconi was operating the transmitter, and a young assistant*, a resident of Salvan, began to move the receiver, which sounded a bell, farther away. First the distance was approximately four or five meters. The final distance in which the experiment worked was approximately one and a half kilometers. Each time the bell sounded the young assistant would hold up a red flag; when it did not he would hold up a white flag. (The accounts of the actual distance vary.) These experiments continued for several weeks.
+An international tender was made, with proposals requested to the main US and Germany consultant firms, for both the hydraulic and electric installations. Total freedom was given in relation to power transmission system to be used. A [[Pelton Wheel|Pelton turbine]] was specified as a requirement. The civil works and the aqueduct were to be built by the Lota company.
-Marconi only spent a short time in Salvan, then returned to Italy. The following year he filed the original patent on his invention in London.
+Work to build the Chivilingo power station started in 1896 and it was inaugurated in 1897. It was the first hydroelectric power plant in Chile and the second in South America.
-Much of this information was obtained some 70 years after the event, from the young assistant, Maurice Gay-Balmaz, who was 10 years old at the time of the experiment.
+[[Thomas Alva Edison|Thomas A. Edison]] supposedly designed the plant. The North American company Consolidated Co. built it and the electrical equipment was provided by Schuckert &amp; Co., from Nürnberg, Germany.
+The "El Sur" newspaper brought the news to all of Chile and helped to inform other countries in the region.The plant was in operation for 78 years (from 1897 to 1975), in its later years interconnected to the main Chilean Central Interconnected System.
+Chivilingo was declared a historical monument by the government of Chile on 25 October 1990, and published in the Official Gazette (Diario Fiscal) Number 33837 on 6 December 1990.
 == Map ==
-{{#display_map:46.12164, 7.02161~ ~ ~ ~ ~Salvan, Switzerland|height=250|zoom=10|static=yes|center=46.12164, 7.02161}}
+{{#display_map:-37.090514, -73.159676~ ~ ~ ~ ~American Philosophical Society Library, Philadelphia, PA|height=250|zoom=10|static=yes|center=-37.090514, -73.159676}}
-[[Category:Communications|{{PAGENAME}}]]
+[[Category:Energy|{{PAGENAME}}]]
-[[Category:Radio_communication|{{PAGENAME}}]]
+[[Category:Power_generation|{{PAGENAME}}]]
-[[Category:Telegraphy|{{PAGENAME}}]]
+[[Category:Hydroelectric_power_generation|{{PAGENAME}}]]
-[[Category:Wireless_telegraphy|{{PAGENAME}}]]