Japan's first thermal power plant was located in Chuo Ward. In Nihonbashikayabacho, there is a monument to the birthplace of electric light supply (pictured). On November 21, 1887 (1887), Tokyo Electric Power Company (now Tokyo Electric Power Company) built a power plant and supplied electric lights to nearby companies.
The monument was equipped with a 30-hap horizontal steam machine with the first electric light supply using a distribution line, and operated one 20KW Edison DC generator. It is said that the electric light was supplied to Nippon Yusen Corporation and the Tokyo Post Office in 210 volt DC.
The world's first thermal power plant invented by Edison was a power supply to New York City in 1881. Six years later, the technology was introduced here in Japan. The amount of electricity generated using coal as fuel is only 1,600 incandescent light bulbs. At that time, I used electricity only for electric lights, so it seems that was enough. Moreover, since it was supplied by direct current (currently alternating), the transmission range seems to have been as narrow as a few kilometers. Looking at the old map of the Meiji era, there is a display of "light station" on this land.
Eiichi Shibusawa, a businessman who had planned the entire area as a business district, including the establishment of Daiichi National Bank since the early Meiji era, met Edison, who invented it. In 1909 (1909), a group of U.S. businessmen headed by Shibusawa visited Edison Electric Power Company.
Writer Junichirou Tanizaki wrote in his autobiography "Kids" that he lived in this area where he could hear the sound of the power plant and went to Sakamoto Elementary School. The generator was exhibited at the Science Museum in Ueno as "Edison Dynamo" was used in Japan's first commercial thermal power plant. @ Akira Makibuchi
