IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - March/April 2016 - 8

letters to the editor

share your thoughts
send comments to m.olken@ieee.org

READERS ARE ENCOURAGED TO
share their views on issues affecting
the electric power engineering profession. Send your letters to Mel Olken,
editor in chief, m.olken@ieee.org. Letters may be edited for publication.

40 Hz Lives On
The De Cew Falls
Hydroelectric Plant
The September/October 2015 issue
of IEEE Power & Energy Magazine
landed in my mailbox yesterday (31
August 2015). This morning I read
Tom Blalock's latest piece about 40-Hz
systems (T.J. Blalock, "An Unusual
Frequency," IEEE Power & Energy
Magazine, vol. 13, no. 5, pp. 72-88,
2015). Right at the end, he asks if the
40-Hz Mechanicville, New York, plant
is the oldest still in operation. It may
well be, but we probably have a runnerup here in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. It is DeCew Falls. The first two
machines went into service in 1898, the
same year as Mechanicville. They were
100 hp each, two phase, 8,000 alternations per minute (66 2/3 Hz). Their
claim to IEEE fame was not their size
but the distance the power was transmitted, which was 35 mi (56 km) to
Hamilton, Ontario.
The article describing the plant
mentions the fact that when the plant
first went on line in 1898, there were a
number of small existing local systems
in Hamilton that had to be converted.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MPE.2015.2501119
Date of publication: 18 February 2016

ieee power & energy magazine

The frequencies were all over the
place, with some as high as 100 Hz. It
makes you wonder what was going on.
Regrettably, these two machines, plus
two more of 1899 vintage, were cut up
for scrap during World War II.
The next additions at DeCew date
from 1903 (Figure 1) and are still in
daily service. Not only that but in 2013,
Ontario Hydro (a.k.a. Ontario Power
Generation) was putting them through
a life extension program designed to
last another 30 years, which would
make them 130 years old. The last time
I was there was in 2013 when we took
a party of IEEE Life Members there.
As a side issue about frequencies,
it is worth noting that the selection of
60 Hz had, naturally, various pros and
cons. Specifically, the higher frequency
permitted industrial motors to spin
faster. But a disadvantage, of course,
was that the inductive reactance of long

transmission lines is higher than, say,
50, 30, or 25 Hz.
I was interested in Mr. Blalock's pictures of the GE Schenectady works. I
used to know Schenectady well. My first
job was in the System Planning Department of what was then the Schawinigan
Water & Power Co. in Montreal. Every
year, we used to go down there for two
weeks to run our system load-flow and
fault studies. In 1961-1962, we lived
there while I attended the GE power
system engineering course. Last time
we were through Schenectady, most all
the GE buildings had been demolished.
Such is progress.
-David E. Hepburn

An Exciting Rediscovery
of Early 40 Hz
It was a great pleasure to read Thomas
J. Blalock's fascinating article about

figure 1. The 1903 wicket gate mechanism at the DeCew Falls hydroelectric
plant. (Photo courtesy of David E. Hepburn.)
march/april 2016

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - March/April 2016