IEE Power Division: Chairman´s address. Let there be light

Appropriately to the centenary year of the IEE, the paper reviews the past 100 years of the distribution and utilisation activities of the electrical-power industry. With their origins back in Faraday´s momentous discovery of electromagnetic induction in 1831, the enoumous electrical-power industrieds of today have been built on the brilliant inventions of the past. The latter half of the 19th century saw the exploitation of the dynamo, the arc and incandescent lamp and the electric motor. At the end of that period, the new supply utilities had a reliable and economic means of production, namely the dynamo, and a diversified load with motors added to lighting. The `battle of the systems¿ at this time resulted in the predominance of a.c., given an imperishable lead by the young Ferranti´s concept of larger-scale central generation at high voltage. Combined with Parsons´s inverntion of the steam turbine, generation by turboalternators in central stations holds gool to this day. Many of the fundamental principles and basic materials for transmitting, controllong and measuring date from this time, although steady advances in design have brought them to an efficiency undreamed of in those days. The continuity of development is traced and projected into the future, in the scope for research, for management, for the profession, and in the exercise of social responsibility.