It is often erroneously believed that the first AC power plant was built exactly on the Niagara Falls. However, originally there were Power Houses 1 and 2 built about two km upstream with respect to the Niagara Falls.
Since 1927, the official name of power houses which first implemented “Tesla Polyphase System” was the Adams Power Plant.
On the Niagara Falls themselves, due to harsh conditions and being a nature protected area, there was no power plant nor any other industrial facility.
As many as nine crucial 1888 patents due to Nikola Tesla were used.
As the world’s first large-scale electricity producer, Adams Power Plant was built by The Niagara Falls Power Company, strongly supported by:
- Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company, Pittsburgh, PA, for power generators,
- General Electric, NY, for transformers
- and I. P. Morris Company of Philadelphia for 29-ton turbines, based on the design of the Swiss company Faesch and Piccard.
Nikola Tesla’s Speech at Niagara Falls Opening Ceremony
“We have many a monument of past ages; we have the palaces and pyramids, the temples of the Greek and the cathedrals of Christendom. In them is exemplified the power of men, the greatness of nations, the love of art and religious devotion. But the monument at Niagara has something of its own, more in accord with our present thoughts and tendencies. It is a monument worthy of our scientific age, a true monument of enlightenment and of peace. It signifies the subjugation of natural forces to the service of man, the discontinuance of barbarous methods, the relieving of millions from want and suffering”
– Nikola Tesla’s speech at the opening ceremony of the hydroelectric power station, January 12, 1897.
