Energy · 1895

Niagara Falls power plant

Westinghouse generators at Niagara send AC power to Buffalo.

The Adams plant began generating in 1895 using Tesla's polyphase system, and from 1896 it sent power 40 km to Buffalo. It settled the war of currents and made large remote hydro plants feeding cities the standard model.

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

Three-phase transmission 1891
Hydroelectric power 1878

Watch

Nikola Tesla Harnessed the Power of Niagara FallsScience Channel · YouTube

Related measurements

The dashed line marks when it first worked.

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

Share of electricity from low-carbon sources Latest: 42.6 % (2025) Source: Our World in Data