Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- International Comparisons of Electricity Regulation
- 1 Introduction: International comparisons of electricity regulation
- 2 Regulation, public ownership and privatisation of the English electricity industry
- 3 How should it be done? Electricity regulation in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and Chile
- 4 From club-regulation to market competition in the Scandinavian electricity supply industry
- 5 Competition and institutional change in U.S. electric power regulation
- 6 The Japanese electric utility industry
- 7 Regulation of the market for electricity in the Federal Republic of Germany
- 8 The evolution of New Zealand's electricity supply structure
- 9 Regulation of electric power in Canada
- 10 The French electricity industry
- 11 The Yugoslav electric power industry
- Index
10 - The French electricity industry
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- International Comparisons of Electricity Regulation
- 1 Introduction: International comparisons of electricity regulation
- 2 Regulation, public ownership and privatisation of the English electricity industry
- 3 How should it be done? Electricity regulation in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and Chile
- 4 From club-regulation to market competition in the Scandinavian electricity supply industry
- 5 Competition and institutional change in U.S. electric power regulation
- 6 The Japanese electric utility industry
- 7 Regulation of the market for electricity in the Federal Republic of Germany
- 8 The evolution of New Zealand's electricity supply structure
- 9 Regulation of electric power in Canada
- 10 The French electricity industry
- 11 The Yugoslav electric power industry
- Index
Summary
Historical overview of electric industry in France: 1880–1946
Discovery and beginning use of electricity
France played an outstanding part in basic scientific and technical discoveries for industrial and domestic usage of electricity. However, industrial and commercial applications were long to come, compared to the United States, Germany, and Switzerland.
In August 1881, the First Exhibition of Electricity held in Paris revealed foreign competition's vitality in the scientific domain and the American and German significant lead in industrial and commercial applications. Convinced of the commercial interest of electric innovations, industrialists from those countries were rushing in a patent race.
French researchers were involved very early in hydroelectric industrial specialties: electrochemistry and electrometallurgy. The first French industrialists interested in electric power were paper manufacturers installed on the Alps rivers' banks. Using until then the mechanical power of running water (with watermills), and willing to improve their performance, they became the pioneers of hydroelectric industry in the Alps. However, their production was restricted to the needs of paper manufacturing.
Because of their huge electricity consumption, electrochemical and electrometallurgical industries started off the rise of the use of hydroelectricity in France. These two technologically advanced industries generated the first great hydroelectric installations in the Alps as early as 1890. They alone escaped foreign rule. Rapidly, electrochemical and electrometallurgical firms improved their knowledge in electricity production and transportation enough to be able to sell the energy surplus to nearby towns and villages (among them Lyon and Grenoble).
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- International Comparisons of Electricity Regulation , pp. 406 - 456Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1996
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