Power Plant at Electron.
The largest plant in the world for the generation of electric current by water power, with the single exception of the power plant at Niagara Falls, has been installed during the last eighteen months by the Puget Sound Power Company, of Tacoma, at Electron, twenty-eight miles southeast of Tacoma, near Lake Kapowsin, on the Tacoma Eastern railroad. The work of installing the power plant at Electron was commenced early in 1903. The first unit of 5,000-horse power was ready for trial on April 14, 1904, and before the end of July, 1904, four 5,000-horse power units, making a total of 20,000-horse power, were completely installed and in commercial operation. The Puget Sound Power Company is owned by Messrs. Stone & Webster, of Boston, who control and operate the Tacoma Railway & Power Company, the Tacoma and Seattle Interurban railway and the Seattle Electric Railway Company. The plant at Electron was installed in order to furnish power for operation of the urban, suburban and interurban railways of the Puget Sound cities and to market the surplus to other power consumers.
A page of illustrations is here presented showing, from recent photographs, some of the principal features of the power plant at Electron. The water for the plant is taken from the south fork of the Puyallup River, below its junction with the Mowich, thirty-five miles from Tacoma and 1,800 feet above sea level. The river at this point drains five of the largest glaciers of Mount Tacoma. A low dam has been constructed, shown in the photograph of the headworks, whence the water is conducted by a flume eight feet wide and eight feet deep, following the contour of the river canyon and descending at the rate of seven feet to the mile, ten miles and a half to a reservoir covering twenty-one acres and averaging twenty feet in depth, on the crest of the hill above the power house. The reservoir holds in reserve ten hours’ supply for the power plant. The water is dropped from the reservoir to the power house through four steel pipes or penstock lines, 1,700 feet in length, erected on the slope of the canyon at an angle of about 45 degrees. A fall of 887 feet and a pressure of 400 pounds to the square inch is thus secured. Four million pounds of steel pipe were required for the penstock line, each cylinder being four feet in diameter at the top and reducing to two seven-inch nozzles for each pipe. The water issues from the nozzles at a speed of about three miles a minute and is applied to four impulse water-wheels specially constructed for the purpose. The present electrical installation includes four generators, each of 3,500 kilowatts capacity. The flume, the reservoir, the forebay, the slope for the penstock line and the site for the power house have been constructed or prepared with a view of adding to the capacity of the plant. The west wall of the power house shown in the illustration is temporary, in contemplation of its extension and the installation of from two to four additional 5,000-horse power units as soon as required.
The present plant is abundantly supplied with water by the flume filled to a depth of three feet. The water passes through the flume at the rate of seven miles an hour. There is abundance of water for the operation of the plant in the Puyallup River at all seasons of the year, as the river is fed by torrents from the glaciers in the dry season and by copious rains in the winter.
Views in Tacoma’s Parks.
- 1—Superintendent Roberts’ Lodge at Point Defiance Park.
- 2—The Sound from Point Defiance Park.
- 3—Glimpse In Wright Park.
- 4—The Beach at Point Defiance.
- 5—Spanaway Park.
The Puget Sound Power Company, of Tacoma, has a large surplus of power above the requirements of the electric railways controlled by Stone & Webster. This power is already used to pump water from the new driven wells at South Tacoma for the city of Tacoma, also to operate the great railway construction and repair plant of the Northern Pacific railway at South Tacoma, the new packing house plant of the Carstens Packing Company on the tideflats, the large grain warehouses and elevators between the Eleventh Street bridge and the Government warehouse on the city waterway, numerous furniture factories, machine shops, pipe and iron foundries, and a large number of stationary motors for miscellaneous enterprises at Tacoma, besides supplying current for light and power in the valley towns between Tacoma and Seattle and the latter city. The transmission line from Electron to Tacoma is twenty-eight miles in length, while the distance from the plant to Seattle is forty-eight miles.