Collections Online

British Thomson-Houston turbo-alternator from Hatfield Colliery, Yorkshire. High pressure steam. Input: 140 psi. Operates at: 3,000 rpm with a maximum output of 329 amps at 3,300 volts. Efficiency: 35%.

In the latter half of the 19th century both inventors and engineers realised that the traditional steam engine was reaching the limit of its development. One alternative was to burn the fuel inside the engine, rather than outside it in a boiler – a method which led to the evolution of the gas engine. The other development was the steam turbine, invented by Charles Parsons in 1884. In the steam turbine the steam enters the engine through a number of nozzles at high pressure and strikes a series of blades mounted in the form of rotating discs. The invention was enormously successful and it rapidly displaced the traditional steam engine for driving electrical generators in power stations. This example, with its generator, was built in 1925 and worked at Hatfield Colliery, Yorkshire until 1974. Although it is smaller than the steam turbines in use today it is, nevertheless, typical of those to be found in all modern power stations, whether they are operated by coal, oil, gas or nuclear power. (Source: Welsh Industrial & Maritime Museum Guidebook, 1984).