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| A Pioneer of Large Scale Electrical Supply |
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After finishing his degree in Munich in 1878, the engineer for railroad, bridge and hydraulic engineering Oskar von Miller joined the civil service. The poor career prospects offered there led von Miller to turn his attention to electrical engineering. This decision was triggered by the first international exhibition of electrical engineering in Paris in 1881. One year later, the city of Munich commissioned him to organize an exhibition for electricity. With a 57 km-long overhead line from Miesbach to Munich, he demonstrated that the transmission of electric energy over large distances was technically possible with the aid of direct current.
From 1883 to 1889, alongside Emil Rathenau, Oskar von Miller was Director of the German Edison corporation which was later to become AEG. After returning to Munich, he founded an engineer’s office which worked out and implemented various power plant projects. In 1891 Oskar von Miller organized the electrical engineering exhibition in Frankfurt. The highlight of the show was the direct current transmission via a 175 km-long 20000 V line from Lauffen to Frankfurt which he himself initiated. This successful experiment laid the foundations for the extensive supply of electrical current in Germany. | |
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