Empire Rising: Spain

Although the existing carbon filament light bulbs can be used commercially, they obviously won’t have a significant market before the power plant is completed.

To solve this problem and accelerate Spain’s electrification progress, Carlo decided to build a thermal power plant in the suburbs of Madrid to provide some electricity to the Madrid Royal Palace and parts of the city.

The good news is, currently the only electrical appliance worldwide is the light bulb, and the power consumption of the light bulb is not much. Although the current generators available for constructing a thermal power plant are not powerful, they can still meet the lighting demand of the lamps.

Graham himself has considerable research on generators. The ring electrical drive he developed can be used for both hydropower generation and thermal power generation.

According to Graham’s calculations and estimates, the current complete set of ring-driven engines is expected to reach a power generation capacity of 5.5KW, which will become one of the largest power stations in Europe.

Graham’s two sizes of light bulbs, the smaller bulb has a power of about 15 watts, while the larger bulb has a power increased to 35 watts.

This means, even if the thermal power plant, which can reach 5.5KW, operates at full capacity, it can only illuminate about 300 small bulbs, or about 140 large bulbs.

And this is without considering the loss during electricity transmission. Even though the power plant is relatively close to the Madrid Royal Palace, the loss of power is unavoidable.

However, the primary role of this thermal power plant is to provide lighting for the Royal Palace, while also demonstrating the convenience brought by electricity to the nobles and capitalists of Spain.

Relying on the Royal Family to promote electrification in Spain is very challenging. But if nobles and capitalists work together, Spain’s electrification progress will be much faster.

At least the first step is to get these nobles and capitalists interested in electric lights and power, so they invest some capital into the electric power industry.

Lighting is indeed important. Not only can it illuminate the castles and manors of the nobility, but also the factories of the capitalists.

The nobility seeks tangible convenience and technology that reflects their status, while capitalists want ways to run their factories in double shifts to earn more money.

Some people will likely see the business opportunity with electricity and light bulbs. Anyway, Carlo, leveraging the Electricity Laboratory, will undeniably profit. More people joining the electric power industry also means the technological progress in this field will accelerate.

Besides having the Electricity Laboratory construct a thermal power station in the suburbs near the Royal Palace, Carlo also assigned new tasks to the laboratory.

First, continue researching light bulbs, aiming to improve their lifespan and brightness. The small bulbs are still manageable, but the lifespan of large bulbs lasting only over 100 hours is far too short.

Considering that large bulbs are generally used in factories or on streets, places relatively wide with prolonged lighting times.

Therefore, the lifespan of large bulbs needs to at least increase to over 300 hours, otherwise frequent replacements due to short lifespans could deter those initially interested.

Second, continue vigorously researching generators and related power generation concepts. A 5.5KW generation capacity is simply too small, only able to light a few hundred bulbs, so how can it drive electrification across Spain?

It’s impossible to construct dozens or hundreds of power stations to meet a city’s power needs, not only would that occupy massive land, but also cause greater pollution.

Carlo’s requirement is to gradually increase the generator’s capacity to at least 30KW within the next five years. A power plant should construct several sets of generators to elevate the generation capacity to hundreds of KW, possibly barely serving the electricity demand of a certain street or small town.

Only when the generation capacity exceeds a hundred can attempts be made to replace steam engines in factories with electric motors. Relying on current sufficient-for-light-bulbs electricity is not as beneficial as sticking with the old steam engines.

Third, research more effective ways of electricity transmission. There’s no mature electricity transmission system in this era, unlike future days.

Not even the AC versus DC current dispute between Tesla and Edison has started yet; the electricity transmission method of this era is simply connecting electrical wires, that’s all.

Although connecting wires is indeed straightforward, it results in significant power loss during transmission. Given the small power capacity of generators at the power plant, coupled with considerable loss during electricity transport, the available electricity from a power plant becomes deficient, barely perceptible at distant locations.

To effectively promote electricity, a more efficient method of long-distance transmission must be developed while minimizing power loss.

Only with such improvements can electricity be successfully popularized. However, considering the historical development of the electric power industry, Carlo does not have overly high expectations for this.

The current research results of Electricity Laboratory already exceed Carlo’s expectations, and regardless of whether Carlo’s subsequent demands can be fulfilled, he will not reduce the research funding for the laboratory.

To construct the thermal power plant, Carlo especially instructed Steward Loren to establish the Spanish Royal Power Company.

Although the current Royal Power Company is merely a shell company, Carlo remains highly optimistic about the future development prospects of the power company.