Energy · 1885

Transformer

Closed iron cores step voltage up for transmission and down for homes.

Karoly Zipernowsky, Otto Blathy and Miksa Deri at Ganz in Budapest built the efficient closed-core transformer in 1885, improving on Gaulard and Gibbs. Cheap voltage conversion let power travel far at high voltage with low loss.

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 2

Electric power grid 1882
Electromagnetic induction 1831

What it led to 2

AC power system 1886
Three-phase transmission 1891

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