Electric power industry The world's first public electricity supply was provided in late 1881, when the streets of the Surrey town of Godalming in the UK were lit with electric light. This system was powered from a water wheel on the River Wey, which drove a Siemens alternator that supplied a number of arc lamps within the town. This supply scheme also provided electricity to a number of shops and premises to light 34 incandescent Swan light bulbs. Additionally, Robert Hammond, in December 1881, demonstrated the new electric light in the Sussex town of Brighton in the UK for a trial period. The
History of electricity supply in Queensland connected to one of the last settlements without an electricity supply, Karara and its 33 customers. The following year the first unit of the Gladstone Power Station was commissioned, and this base load station remains the largest by capacity in the state. This enabled the decommissioning of the Howard, Rockhampton and Townsville power stations by 1980. Another base load station was commissioned at Tarong in 1984, the year the Wivenhoe pumped storage hydro-electric station opened in conjunction with the commissioning of a new water supply dam near Brisbane. This additional capacity enabled the decommissioning of the Bulimba power station in