Electrification is an important component of the life of every modern person. It is hard to imagine that we can not turn on the TV, computer, even a simple light bulb. But the blessing, called "electricity", mankind has been using for a little over a hundred years. Prior to this, candles were the main lighting device in the homes of more or less well-to-do citizens, and in the homes of the poor there were flimsy torches. Everything changed in a very short time from the standpoint of history. Now, electricity not only illuminates homes and streets, it makes cars and appliances work, thereby making life easier for people.
General information
Electrification is the widespread introduction of electric energy in various sectors of the economy. At the same time, power systems are formed, consisting of power plants that generate electricity centrally, and power lines.
Such a structure makes it possible to correctly and maximally effectively use the energy resources created by nature itself for the benefit of man, as well as automate and mechanize production, thereby increasing labor productivity.
The beginning of the era of electricity in Russia
Serious research in this area was conducted in several countries at once. The appearance of lighting caused a great resonance not only in scientific circles, but also in society as a whole. It is believed that the first electrification in Russia was carried out in 1879, when the Liteiny Bridge shone with lights in St. Petersburg.
For the introduction and distribution of new products in late January 1880, an electrical department was formed, which became part of the Russian Technical Society. The purpose of its creation was to oversee the problems associated with the electrification of the Russian Empire. In the same year, work was carried out, the result of which was the lighting of several streets in St. Petersburg and Moscow. However, their volume turned out to be very insignificant - about two hundred lamps were installed in total. A little later in Kiev, Yablochkov’s lamps illuminated workshops belonging to the Dnieper Shipping Company.
Initially, at the first stages of electrification, exclusively direct current was used to operate the lighting devices, which created certain problems associated with the transmission of electricity over long distances. In this regard, its source should have been located quite close to the consumer. For example, if we take the case of the Kiev railway workshops, then each of the few lights should have worked only from its own electromagnetic Gram machine.
In May 1883, the then-grandiose illumination of the Moscow Kremlin was carried out on the occasion of the celebrations dedicated to the second anniversary of the coronation of Alexander III in St. Petersburg. To implement this project, it was necessary to build a special power station directly on Sofiyskaya Embankment.
In the same year, in the capital of the Russian Empire, they made lighting of the main street of the city and electrified the Winter Palace. The work was carried out by Siemens and Halske, which for these purposes built the first large power station in the country, with a capacity of 35 kW. It is worth noting that it was quite unusual, because it was located on a barge moored near the Police Bridge.
In 1895, the first power plants in the country were commissioned. One of them was built in St. Petersburg on the river. Big Okhta. Its power at that time was quite impressive - 300 kW. At the same time, the new hydroelectric power station built by the Vladikavkaz Railway Administration, called "White Coal" on the river. Podkumk. It was located between the Essentuki and Kislovodsk, and gave electricity that illuminated these resorts.
Electrification of Moscow
It is no secret that the introduction of any innovation is almost always accompanied by difficulties. For the first time, electric lamps were lit in Moscow in 1883. There were only 32 of them, and they lit up the Kremlin, the Big Stone Bridge and the terrace, located next to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. The source of their food was a small station, located on the Vinno-Salt Yard, on Bolotnaya Embankment. However, due to its low power in the following years, electric lighting remained almost at the same level, because in 1891 no more than 50 arc lamps burned in the city.
Since 1910, the gradual development of electrification begins. New lamps were installed in squares and boulevards, in side streets and on the streets. In addition, sections of tram tracks were also covered. Three years later, about 450 arc lamps and more than 1250 incandescent lamps were burning in the city. Until 1917, the electrification of Moscow developed at a rapid pace, but the October Revolution and the ensuing Civil War made their own adjustments: most of the lights were simply destroyed. Only at the end of the 30s of the last century, when the intensified industrialization of the USSR began, there were already more than 35 thousand of them on the streets of the city.
Electrification in the homes of Muscovites
Needless to say, the appearance of electricity in everyday life made an unprecedented sensation. Electrification is the onset of a new era, when city residents literally began to attack the Moscow police chief with their petitions for permission to conduct electricity in their homes.
In 1904, the well-known manufacturer Zimin supplied electricity to his own estate, located on Bolshaya Alekseevskaya Street. In the evenings, about 70 electric incandescent lamps, each with a power of 3.5 watts, lit it.
By 1913, lighting was also carried out in a number of municipal institutions, which included hospitals, the Butyrsky dispensary, and the five-story building of the lodging house named after Ermakova, city bakery, etc.
Indicators in pre-revolutionary Russia
From the history of electrification, it is known that in 1913 the country was in 4th place in terms of electricity production after extremely developed countries such as Great Britain, the United States and Germany. However, there was another aspect of these rather high indicators. If we take the electricity consumption per capita, then it was almost the lowest in comparison with the countries of America and Europe.
The fact is that the generated electricity was intended mainly for lighting city streets and squares, as well as factories, factories and numerous public institutions. As for the houses of the average townspeople, and especially the electrification of rural dwellings, this was out of the question. In addition, most power plants operated on low-calorific fuel, so the direct current they produced often decayed in the power line cables.
GOELRO Plan
At the end of 1917, Gleb Krzhizhanovsky, who had at one time graduated from the Petersburg Technological Institute and subsequently became the author of the Electrodacha TPP project in the Moscow Region, received Lenin's reception of two members of the so-called Lighting Society Winter and Radchenko. Specialists told the leader about the already existing plans for the electrification of Russia, as well as the fact that they almost completely coincide with the Bolshevik ideas on the centralization of the national economy. But soon the Civil War broke out and this was forgotten for a while.
However, this meeting was remembered by Lenin and a few years later, namely on February 21, 1920, he signed a special order that concerned the creation of the state commission on electrification of the country (GOELRO). Its head was Gleb Krzhizhanovsky, who immediately attracted about two hundred people to the work, which included both practical engineers and scientists from the Academy of Sciences. Interestingly, that commission on the electrification of Soviet Russia also included a well-known philosopher, electrical engineer and priest Pavel Florensky, who attended meetings in a cassock.
Implementation
The GOELRO plan was expected to be implemented in 10-15 years. It envisaged the construction of ten hydropower plants (HPPs) and twenty thermal power plants (TPPs). The total capacity of all was to be 1.75 million kW. Among them, it was planned to build such thermal power plants as Gorkovskaya, Chelyabinsk, Shterovskaya, Shaturskaya and Kashirskaya, as well as hydroelectric power stations - Volkhovskaya, Dnieper, Nizhny Novgorod and others. Then the slogan arose: "Communism is the Soviet government plus electrification of the whole country."
This project included not only the construction of power plants, but also the conduct of economic regionalization, during which the transport and energy basis of the territory of the new state was designated. The plan was to cover eight main areas: Southern, Northern, West Siberian, Volga, Central Industrial, Ural, Turkestan and the Caucasus. In addition, the formation of a transport system was simultaneously carried out. Intensive construction of the Volga-Don Canal, the mainline of the old ones, as well as the laying of new railway lines were carried out.
It is believed that the GOELRO plan became the basis for the industrialization of Soviet Russia. On key points, he was already exceeded by 1931. It was planned that the amount of electricity will increase by 4.5 times, but when compared with 1913, it increased by almost 7 times.
GOELRO Plan Background
It is known from history textbooks that this project was the product of a commission created after the October Revolution. However, according to some reports, one of its authors was Professor Vernadsky. But, unfortunately, in tsarist Russia no one was interested in this project. If we take one of the most famous achievements of GOELRO, which is considered to be Dneproges - a technologically advanced and powerful power plant, then it was developed by Heinrich Graftio two years before the October events that radically changed the country.
If you look closely at the electrification program of the Soviet Union, it will not be difficult to notice a great resemblance to earlier developments made in the pre-revolutionary country. Most of the construction projects planned by the GOELRO project were developed by scientists back in tsarist Russia. However, in those days, there was no talk of improving the lives of ordinary people, mainly the homes of the rich and those in power were electrified, in addition, no one carried out electrification planned and centralized.
Electrification of villages
For villages, the electrification that has begun is, first of all, propaganda of the achievements of the Soviet government. Probably, many remember the textbook photographs that illustrated the trip of V.I. Lenin to the village of Kashino, which took place in mid-November 1920. Recall that it was dedicated to the celebrations dedicated to the opening of the local power plant. It was built at the expense of the newly formed agricultural partnership, the residents themselves during off-hours, moreover, they built it with great enthusiasm.
After this trip, the expression "Illich lamp" appeared. Initially, this concept was associated with the electrification of all of Russia, and especially rural areas. Later in the USSR the so-called household incandescent lamp, usually used without a shade. At the same time, the cartridge was suspended by a wire that freely hung from the ceiling. The power of such light bulbs or the supplied voltage were too small to well illuminate the space around them, but people were happy about this.
It is worth noting that Lenin’s trip to Kashino had a certain impact not only on the development of the Soviet village, but also on the culture of the country as a whole. Soon a short story was written about this for children, and a museum was organized in the village itself, which lasted until the 90s of the last century. And shortly before this, the expression “Ilyich’s lamp” began to be used in a negatively ironic light due to the fact that even by the 80s, some settlements located in rural areas still did not have electric lighting.
Railways
For the first time in the USSR, electric locomotives began to ply in the Suramsky pass section. Why there? Because this section of the Transcaucasian railway was used to deliver Baku oil directly to Georgian ports. The fact is that there was an unusually difficult mountain profile, which required the introduction of special types of steam locomotives that could provide quick delivery of raw materials. Thus, the idea arose of the need for electrification of railways.
The first section that was modified in the Soviet Union was the Baku-Sabunchi section. Work on the installation of high-voltage lines, traction substations and a contact network began in 1928 at the Suramsky pass. A direct current system was operating here, the rated voltage of which in the contact network was 3000 V. A decision was made to purchase abroad the first batch of electric locomotives for the Suramsky site. Subsequently, it was planned to establish their release already on the territory of the USSR, which was successfully implemented. The quality of our electric locomotives was high, due to which they were actively exported.
The first electric locomotives
The Soviet government immediately turned to several foreign companies with an offer to order the construction of locomotives for the Suramsky site. A positive response was received from a number of well-known companies. After studying the materials they provided, they decided to focus on only two of them: the Italian Technomasio Brown Bowery and the American General Electric (GE).
In the early summer of 1932, two electric locomotives from GE were delivered to the Transcaucasian railway at the Khashuri depot: C10-01, as well as C10-03. They were equipped with American-made traction motors. Six more electric locomotives of the same company, but without electric motors arrived at the end of the year. In the same summer, all work related to the electrification of the railway crossing section was completed. On August 2, it was run-in the first in the Soviet Union main electric locomotive. The test drive lasted only 1 h 10 min and passed along the route Khashuri - Likhi and back.
A year later, electric locomotives manufactured by an Italian company began to arrive in the USSR. They were equipped with several innovative design solutions, which were subsequently applied already in Soviet production vehicles. On the basis of a class C electric locomotive, a whole group of Suram locomotives was produced, which were produced until 1956.