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.
[Illustration: 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.