Holló Szilvia Andrea: Budapest's Public Works - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2010)

Direct current versus alternating current

The electricity required for the illumination of areas the size of an entire neighbourhood was provided by generators yielding alternating current. The technology was improved by Hungarian inventors, who introduced their transformer, a device changing the voltage and amperage levels of alternating current, at the national exhibition of 1885. Manufacture of transformers was started by the Ganz and Partner Iron Mill and Machine Factory Co., who intended to introduce the unique potentials of the invention to the municipality of Budapest and promote the use of electricity with street lighting, something much easier to produce and handle than gas. The Ganz works submitted its offer in early 1886 citing the company’s references in the field of street illumination. As no substantial answer arrived, the company made another bid in May of 1887: they offered to provide the electric illumination of Andrássy út, the Small Boulevard and the larger public spaces with arc lamps set up at a distance of 40 to 50 metres from each other, which they pledged to keep in operation for twenty years, in exchange for the offer they asked for rights for providing electricity to private owners. The lighting gas company, which held the monopoly of gas illumination, challenged the offer claiming that they, too, were able to implement the plans outlined. However, as the gas suppliers had not made any steps in that direction, in 1891 the city altered its contract with them to provide for equal conditions for the competition to introduce an alternative system of street illumination.

One of the highlights of the festivities marking the 25th anniversary of the joint monarch’s coronation in 1892 was undoubtedly the electric lighting of the city's various landmarks: "On the fiapade oh the central nation there will be 1,200 incan- deicent and on the Weitem Station 56 arc lamps shedding their dazzling light everywhere. Colour bulbs have been placed into the basins oh the Kálvin tér houn- tain. The building oh the national casino wilt boast the country's coat oh arms composed oh 10 colour incandescent bulbs." Prodded by the unqualified success of the awe-inspiring floodlights, the city authorities invited tenders for electrifying street illumination.

Of the four competitive tenders, in 1893 the city picked two and signed a deal with the privately owned joint companies submitting their plans for the supply of electric power for public consumption. The two distributors began almost simultaneously to operate their respective systems, one using direct current, the other powered by single-phase alternating current. The former was installed by the Budapest General Electric Co., a subsidiary of the General Austrian Illumination Gas Company, while the other was set up by a firm founded with the assistance of the Ganz works. The

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