Thomas Edison’s Pearl Street Station initially served about 400 carbon-filament lamps in 1882.
Pearl Street Station began operating in lower Manhattan on September 4, 1882. It was one of the first central power stations designed to generate electricity at a central location and distribute it to nearby customers.
The station initially supplied roughly 400 lamps in buildings around the district. Its first customers included offices and businesses, making electric lighting a practical public utility rather than an isolated laboratory demonstration.
Pearl Street Station used direct current and Edison’s distribution system. The station expanded as demand grew, but direct-current networks could not efficiently transmit electricity over very long distances. That limitation later contributed to the wider adoption of alternating-current systems for large-scale power distribution. The station itself was destroyed by fire in 1890.