Page:Historical and Biographical Annals of Columbia and Montour Counties, Pennsylvania, Containing a Concise History of the Two Counties and a Genealogical and Biographical Record of Representative Families.djvu/81

52 COLUMBIA AND MONTOUR COUNTIES the counties of Luzerne, Columbia and Montour brought under the requirements of the statutes of the State relative to the supply of light, heat and power within the territory of the franchise and to persons and companies in the territory contiguous thereto.

In undertaking the work of the operation of the various subsidiary companies, the necessity of a change in the power for operation was early felt. Each of the respective operated companies was producing its own motive power, with a multiplicity of engines, generators and machinery, and each with its force of employees. Indeed it was one of the primary conceptions in the economic operation of these companies to secure either a common center of power within the territory, or a power from a distance outside of the territory from which all the subsidiary companies might be operated from a common source or by the manipulation of a single unit. In consummation of this design the company, through the Nescopeck Light, Heat and Power Company, on the 5th day of June. 1909, caused the execution of a contract for the supply of power with the Harwood Electric Company, by which the latter named company agreed to furnish by the 1st of January, 1910. Sufficient common power to operate the transportation companies and all of the light, heat and power companies, to the maximum amount of live thousand kilowatts.

The plant of the Harwood Electric Company is located at Harwood Mines, in Luzerne county, Pa., distant some sixteen miles southeast of Berwick. The steampower for the generation of electricity is produced by the consumption of the refuse of the mining operations of the Pardee Estate extending over a period of some forty years, which, having been produced in mining operations when only the choicest coal was sent into commerce, contains vast deposits of washable and commercial coal as used in modern economics, amounting to millions of tons, which under the present rate of consumption will not be consumed in half a century. In addition to this, vast deposits of virgin coal owned by the estate may be considered supplementary or additional to the capacity of this vast concern.

The plant proper constitutes one of the finest, if not the finest, plants for the production of electricity known to modern engineering. It has been recently constructed, with the most approved and latest appliances, at an expenditure of several millions of dollars, and has a present contemplated maximum capacity of some twenty-five thousand kilowatts, now operating 9,000 kilowatts and supplying an extensive territory in the immediate location of the plant, besides the power furnished to our local companies. The current is transmuted by a double line of triple wires or cables, constituting two units of transmission, so that an accident to one line may be overcome by the use of its alternate.

Under the contract, the power is delivered at a point in Nescopeck township, Luzerne county, on the south bank of the Susquehanna river and is carried thence over the river by cables suspended upon steel abutments or towers, clearing the entire water space by one span, the length of which is 2,300 feet. 1 hence it is carried to Berwick, where it is measured by a system of meters and reduced and divided to the uses of the respective operated companies. This is accomplished by a line of cables extending from Berwick to Danville erected proportionately by each of the respective power companies the territory of which is invaded by the line, each company using such part of the current as its necessities may require. The transportation companies use the current after a transmutation from alternating current to direct current, by efficient generators employed by these companies.

As an auxiliary and additional power, the plant of the Irondale Light, Heat and Power Company has been equipped to develop its waterpower to a potentiality of eight hundred horsepower, with an equal alternate or auxiliary steampower, which under the Harwood contract may be used singly or doubly, at the pleasure of that company. The powerhouse at Irondale has consequently been remodeled and new and effective machinery installed for this general purpose. The primary purpose of the Irondale equipment is to act as a governor and reduce the peak of the load, and in operation not only docs this, but reduces the general consumption of the Harwood current. This effects the most approved engineering scheme for the reduction of the cost of power under the contract with the Harwood Electric Company and in effect produces in the operation of both plants a constant, unfluctuating and efficient current, which is surpassed at no plant in the United States.

All of the various subsidiary companies were operated by the Columbia Power, Light and Railways Company as a holding company until May 26, 1911, when the gentlemen interested in the company, believing that its securities would find a more ready market if each company were operated direct, rather than through the medium of a holding company.