Page - 51 - in Nikola Tesla and the Graz Tech

51 Fig.: Power station project Niagara Falls (Wikimedia Commons, public domain). A crucial factor in the decision was the first successful electricity transmis- sion across a 176-km overhead power line in Germany. Building on an idea of Tesla’s, in 1891 Oskar von Miller managed to step-up an alternating current of 55 volts to 15,000 volts and to conduct it from Lauffen am Neckar to Frank- furt am Main. George Westinghouse used the practical experience of Miller to plan and build his Niagara Falls power station. The Westinghouse Company developed the biggest and, at 5000 HP, the most powerful two-phase AC gen- erators of that time for the production of electricity at 25 Hz. The energy pro- duced by the power station was stepped up to 22,000 volts with transformers and transported to Buffalo over a high-voltage line made by the General Elec- tric company /3/. The power station went into operation in 1895 with three generators and an output of 11 MW and supplied power for machinery and lighting at Buffalo over a 42-km overhead power line in November 1896. The Niagara Falls power station was later expanded by seven more generators by the Westinghouse Company, thus increasing its capacity to some 37 MW.