Energy · 1886

AC power system

Transformers make alternating current the winning way to distribute power.

William Stanley Jr. lit Great Barrington, Massachusetts with a transformer-based AC system in 1886 for George Westinghouse. The 'war of the currents' against Edison's DC ended in AC's favor because only AC could be stepped up for long-distance lines.

See it in the living tree Wikipedia

Arcs above join it to what it stood on, arcs below to what it led to. The bar places this stretch on the tree's whole timeline.

What it built on 1

Transformer 1885

What it led to 3

AC induction motor 1888
Rural electrification 1936
Smith-Putnam turbine 1941

Related measurements

The dashed line marks when it first worked.

UK electricity output since 1896 Latest: 3.57M MWh (1998) Source: Our World in Data

US households with electric power Latest: 99 % of households (2005) Source: Our World in Data

World electricity generation Latest: 31.8k TWh (2025) Source: Our World in Data