Electric Utility Glossary
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Nikola Tesla
Author: Frank Skinner
Published: August 20, 2025
Who was Nikola Tesla?
Many people know the name Nikola Tesla but they may not realize that the modern electric utility system is largely based on his initial work called the polyphase electrical system. Tesla is known for inventing or improving upon other inventions in many groundbreaking areas, including: radio and wireless communication, x-rays, fluorescent and neon lighting, remote control, electromagnetic generators, and many components involved in AC power generation and distribution.
It’s important to place Tesla in context to the pioneers in electricity that came before him. Inventor and scientist Michael Faraday opened a small doorway into the world of electromagnetic induction in 1831 but during this time, electricity was still considered fringe science with limited real-world use cases. Tesla learned from Faraday’s work.
Inventor and scientist Thomas Edison then opened the doorway further with the first practical and sellable light bulb in 1879 and the creation of central power systems. Edison revolutionized the world but the doorway to the world of electricity was still partially closed.
Nikola Tesla kicked the door open much wider than anyone thought possible with his understanding of AC electricity and his AC induction motor, which was patented in 1888. This led to his polyphase electric system, which the world's modern electric utility system is largely based on.
Nikola Tesla’s Early Life
Tesla was born in Croatia in 1856, but his family was Serbian by ethnicity. His curiosity with electricity started at a very young age.
According to Marc Seifer, author of Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla, he highlights a written account from Tesla about a cat Tesla was petting as a boy. The experience created static electricity and Tesla in his later years remarked “I cannot exaggerate the effect of this marvelous sight on my childish imagination. Day after day I found myself asking the question what is electricity and found no answer. Eighty years have gone by since and I still ask the same question, unable to answer it.”
Tesla’s early life included schooling where his father was both a priest and a teacher. Tesla also had other family members who were teachers and he grew up exposed to academics. In Tesla’s college years he was known to obsessively study and he continued to research the emerging science of electricity. During this time, Tesla was exposed to the growing notoriety of Thomas Edison and Edison’s inventions. Tesla’s college also imported a small dynamo motor, which Tesla was able to experience first hand and further his curiosity.
After college Tesla eventually moved to Paris, France, where he worked for a new company called Edison Continental, one of the first electric utility companies in Europe. Tesla helped install electrical equipment and he helped maintain the electric system components. Tesla was actively learning about electricity as well as getting a chance to work in a leading high technology field. This helped support his understanding of electric power, how it was engineered, and the troubleshooting involved in making electric components work properly. It also was a catalyst for his fascination with alternating current (AC), which was not widely understood at a practical level.
Tesla Gets Hired by Edison
In 1882, Edison’s Pearl Street generating station began operation in New York City, ushering in DC electrical technology and a new level of human achievement. In 1884, Tesla decided that his ideas, inventions, and personal experience would be better served by moving to America. His first job in America was working for his hero, Edison.
While Tesla was hired to help with electric engineering needs and fixing equipment, Tesla was able to assess that Edison’s approaches to invention were not optimal. Edison was known to be a trial and error inventor whereas Tesla had more schooling and experience in the scientific method of study that gave Tesla advantages when it came to experimentation techniques and the analytical process. Tesla also had a deeper understanding of the benefits of AC power than Edison.
Tesla and Edison’s relationship is well documented historically and most historians remark that Tesla was young and naive about how the business world worked. Tesla was championing AC power at a time when Edison and all of Edison’s large financial backers were investing in DC power and trying to grow a multimillion dollar global electric market. It was instinctive for Edison to protect his investment in DC power and Edison actively campaigned against AC power at business level, a political level, and technological level. However, Tesla knew that DC had major limitations and that he could do exponentially greater things with AC power.
Thomas Commerford Martin’s book The Inventions, Researches, and Writings of Nikola Tesla, includes references to a lunch Tesla had with Edison and some of Edison’s close associates. During that lunch the topic of wages came up specific to Tesla who made $18 a week. It was shared with the group that Tesla’s skill was very common and that there were hundreds more like him, greatly downplaying Tesla’s value.
Conversely, Edison asked Tesla to fix a DC generator and components that were frequently breaking. Whether the task was impossible or not, Edison indicated that he would give Tesla $50,000 if Tesla could get it up and running under the premise that Edison didn’t think Tesla could do it.
Tesla then proceeded to work on it and fix it in record time, and then came back to Edison looking for his $50,000 payout. Edison shifted the conversation stating that the $50,000 was just meant to be a joke, however, Tesla didn’t interpret it that way and he resigned.
In order to make ends meet, Tesla literally dug ditches. During this time he was also far enough along on his AC power inventions that he began the process of trying to patent them, which was a challenge by itself because Tesla had no financial standing. The person who eventually created the technology to electrify the world was broke and his career prospects looked pretty dim.
AC vs DC and the Current Wars
While Tesla did finally attract some financial backers and launch his own electric company, it was short lived. Furthermore, his investors left him when he tried to move more deeply into AC inventions because they didn’t think it would be viable. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, there was tremendous competition surrounding new electrical patents and modified patents that were continuously embroiled in lawsuits. Both Edison and Tesla filed numerous patents and while many people were working on AC power during that time, it was still an emerging field.
In 1888, Tesla’s AC induction motor eventually got more publicity and Tesla attracted a businessman and electrical enthusiast named George Westinghouse. Westinghouse was already invested in AC power generation centralized electric systems but the early systems were dangerous and few people were qualified to work on them.
Because of the level of investment in DC power from Edison and all of Edison’s financial backers, it turned the topic of electricity into a heated political, cultural and business fight because of the potential money to be made or lost.
Tesla maintained a consistent position about the benefits of AC throughout this conflict and it would take a big international event, the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893, to fully catapult Tesla’s AC electric system into a position where it would become the dominant technology used for the next 100 years.
Electrifying the World’s Fair in Chicago
Tesla and Westinghouse bid to light up the World’s Fair in Chicago in 1893 because it was a great event to showcase Tesla’s polyphase AC electric system. Edison and his major financial backer, J.P. Morgan also bid to light up the World’s Fair for similar reasons. But, Tesla and Westinghouse underbid Edison and Morgan and eventually won the contract.
In a twist of fate however, the bulbs Tesla was going to use for the World’s Fair were caught in a patent lawsuit with Edison. Edison’s legal team got the bulbs removed from being used at the event. Tesla had to scramble to find and manufacture other bulbs that would be a viable and legal work around before the event, otherwise the event would have been a disaster for Tesla and Westinghouse. Tesla was able to find a workaround to the bulb problem and had over 100,000 bulbs made for the event powered by 12 of his AC electric generators.
Despite Edison’s attempts to ruin the fair for AC technology, the event was a huge success and it was a springboard for Tesla, Westinghouse and the emerging AC power industry.
DC generators and electric systems were unreliable, costly to maintain, and there were physical limits to how far DC power could be pushed through electrical wiring. Getting DC to work beyond two miles was a challenge and it required a system of numerous generating stations to power a large region. AC could be transmitted over much longer distances and it could be changed to lower voltages making it more flexible as a technology choice for different situations. AC required less centralized power plants and it offered more system efficiency. AC was significantly better than DC in so many areas that it made it hard to support DC and the claims being made by Edison.
AC won the current war on its merits, but it was not an easy fight. AC was undermined from the beginning by financial forces, patent obstructions, politics and public health scares.
Building the Electric Age with AC
Following the world’s fair, Tesla and Westinghouse won the bid to create a power plant at Niagara Falls, which powered the city of Buffalo, NY. As the system was further built out, it ultimately was able to supply power to New York City hundreds of miles away further cementing AC as the preferred power system of choice.
Tesla eventually parted ways with Westinghouse to work on special interest projects but they parted ways amicably unlike with Edison. In an era of patents and patent lawsuits, Westinghouse was challenged financially because Westinghouse did not own Tesla’s AC patents. Tesla famously signed his patents over to Westinghouse. Whereas Tesla stood to make millions of dollars potentially, he opted instead to promote the value of the technology and Westinghouse’s future development.
The foundation for the world’s new and improved AC electric system was in place and the AC system is still fundamentally used to this day as the primary means of power production, transmission and distribution.
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Nikola Tesla, 1856-1943