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 it together with the Tennyson station which opened in 1955 significantly eased the post-war power shortages that had seen frequent brown-outs, load shedding by industries and staggered work hours introduced to alleviate that situation. In the far north of the state, expansion of electricity generation capacity in the Cairns region was determined to be more economically achieved by hydro-electric schemes, as the cost of shipping coal to Cairns was significant. The Kareeya Hydro Power Station was commissioned in 1957, and the Barron Gorge power station was significantly expanded in 1963. At Mt Isa, the first stage of the Mica Creek