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21
The Company has large contracts with the Commissioners of Sowers for
public street lighting, and is now lighting nearly 250 street lamps in
Queen Victoria Street, Cheapside, Gresham Street, King Street and
other important thoroughfares. These lamps are 500 watts, with a
nominal candle power of 2,000, and are placed at an average
distance of 45 yards apart. Queen Victoria Street, in which are
placed 26 arc lamps, is looked upon as one of the best lighted
thoroughfares in the country. There are four separate sets of plant
for street lighting, each engine being 120 i.h.p. Each set will
supply 110 arc lamps of 2,000 c.p. The plant for incandescent
lighting consists of four engines of 200 i.h.p., with dynamos in
parallel, and is designed to serve 13,000 8 c.p. lamps in use simultaneously.
The boilers are by Babcock and Wilcox, while tho rest of
the machinery, including engines, dynamos, exciters, switches, &c.,
were manufactured by the Brush Electrical Manufacturing Company.
The Company is using the high tension alternating current system
for incandescent lighting, and the high tension continuous current
for arc lighting, the latter being considered most suitable for public
street lighting. A striking feature in this Company's system, and
one which deserves considerable attention by the Committee, is the
use of what are termed "bank transformers" for reducing the
current from a high voltage to a low one before it is distributed in
the streets where energy is supplied. These "bank transformers"
are placed in sub-stations under the road or in other suitable places,
and the voltage is decreased by means of these transformers for
distribution throughout a certain area, thereby doing away with
the placing of a transformer in or near the premises of each
consumer. It is claimed that the greater the size of a transformer
the greater its efficiency, and it was demonstrated to your Committee
that there are many advantages in favor of this system of transforming
the current from a high to a low pressure. It should be
stated that the existing works of the Company are simply regarded
as a pioneer station, vast extensions being at the present moment
carried out. At the time of your Sub-Committee's visit, two
additional dynamos were nearly completed, each capable of running
7,500 8 c.p. lamps.
Your Sub-Committee was very much impressed with the working of this
station and particularly with the system of distribution, a system