Chapter 129: Formulating
Roland gave another respectful bow before disappearing down the hallway.
Within minutes, servants entered the study carrying rolled district maps, estate surveys, engineering ledgers, and several oil lamps despite the room already being illuminated by electricity. The habit remained difficult to break. Most servants still instinctively reached for lamps whenever work continued after sunset.
Ernest smiled faintly.
Old habits rarely disappeared overnight.
Once the maps had been arranged across the large oak table, he dismissed everyone. The heavy doors closed quietly behind the last servant, leaving only the faint hum of the generator outside and the steady white glow of the electric lamps hanging from the ceiling.
Silence settled over the room.
Exactly what he needed.
He unrolled the largest map first.
Oriel.
The three districts spread across nearly the entire table.
Beryl occupied the northern hills where spacious estates overlooked the surrounding countryside. Wide roads connected elegant residences separated by carefully maintained gardens, ponds, and rows of old oak trees.
To the west stood Apex.
Fewer houses.
Larger estates.
The oldest noble families in Oriel preferred privacy over density. Every residence occupied enormous plots surrounded by stone walls and elaborate landscaping.
Arcada stretched across the southern portion of the estate.
Unlike the other two districts, its streets followed a practical grid. Workshops, merchants, craftsmen, clerks, and factory workers lived there. The houses were smaller, built closer together, and supported by markets, schools, bakeries, warehouses, and dozens of small businesses.
Nearly two thousand buildings.
Perhaps slightly more.
Ernest rested both hands on the table.
People often imagined electricity as light.
That was understandable.
After all, lamps were the first thing anyone noticed.
But lighting represented only the final five percent of the system.
The remaining ninety-five percent stayed hidden beneath roads, inside buildings, or behind machinery.
He picked up a pencil and drew a large circle near the southern edge of Arcada.
Power Station.
Not because Arcada deserved it more than Beryl or Apex.
Because engineering cared very little about social status.
Coal had to arrive by wagon.
Water had to reach the boilers.
Smoke had to leave through chimneys.
The industrial road already connected directly to Arcada, while the nearby stream supplied enough water for boiler feed systems and condensers.
Building such a station inside Apex would invite endless complaints from nobles.
Building it inside Beryl would waste valuable residential land.
Arcada simply made sense.
He drew three thick lines extending from the station.
One toward each district.
Primary Feeders.
The terminology returned almost automatically.
A city-wide electrical network resembled the circulatory system of a human body.
The generating station served as the heart.
The primary conductors acted as arteries carrying large amounts of electrical power toward different districts.
Once there, smaller distribution lines divided the supply into neighborhoods.
Finally, service conductors entered individual buildings.
One enormous wire feeding every house directly would be ridiculous.
It would resemble constructing a separate road from the capital to every single home in the kingdom.
Instead, engineers solved the problem exactly as civilizations solved transportation.
Major roads.
Secondary roads.
Local streets.
Electricity followed the same philosophy.
The more Ernest considered it, the more he appreciated how naturally infrastructure evolved.
Whether moving people, water, information, or electricity, humanity repeatedly discovered similar solutions.
He turned to another blank sheet.
Power Generation.
Three compound steam engines.
Each rated at approximately one megawatt.
He deliberately stopped at three.
Earlier, he had considered installing four units.
Now he shook his head.
Too expensive.
This project existed to convince the king, not bankrupt Teucher Industrial Group.
Three generators produced enough electricity for the first phase while leaving room inside the building for future expansion.
He added another note beneath it.
Reserve Foundation.
No fourth machine immediately.
Only the reinforced foundation where one could eventually be installed.
Construction crews always preferred pouring concrete once rather than demolishing finished floors later.
The same principle applied to stone foundations.
Build for tomorrow while digging today.
His pencil continued moving.
Boiler House.
Three Lancashire boilers.
Twin furnaces.
Shared steam header.
Feedwater pumps.
Economizers could wait.
Superheaters belonged even further in the future.
Those mattered far more than squeezing another few percentage points from thermal efficiency.
After all, Belfast still lacked experienced boiler engineers.
Complicated machinery required complicated maintenance.
Complicated maintenance often resulted in broken machinery.
He reached for another sheet.
Transmission.
The existing telegraph poles immediately caught his attention.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
The telegraph network had already forced the kingdom to solve several engineering problems that electrical distribution also required.
Pole spacing.
Foundations.
Crossarms.
Insulators.
Maintenance access.
Inspection schedules.
Survey methods.
The two systems differed in voltage and conductor size, but the supporting infrastructure looked remarkably similar.
Could both systems share poles?
He paused.
Probably.
Not immediately.
But eventually.
A separate crossarm carrying electrical conductors above the telegraph wires could reduce construction costs considerably.
He quickly circled the idea before writing another note.
Investigate shared utility corridors.
That single observation might save millions of riels if expanded across an entire kingdom.
He smiled.
Engineering occasionally rewarded people who noticed small similarities.
His attention returned to Oriel.
Street lighting.
Now this required considerably more thought.
Lighting every road equally sounded fair.
It also wasted electricity.
Not every street carried the same amount of traffic.
Main avenues connected districts and remained busy well into the evening.
Residential lanes became almost empty after sunset.
Markets experienced heavy activity before closing.
Industrial roads operated according to factory shifts.
Different roads required different lighting densities.
He began marking them in different colors.
Main Avenue.
Lamp every twenty-five meters.
Commercial streets.
Thirty-five meters.
Residential roads.
Fifty meters.
Public squares.
Multiple lamps surrounding intersections.
The calculations grew rapidly.
By the time he finished the first estimate, the total reached nearly nine hundred street lamps.
Less than expected.
Still substantial.
He made another note.
Future expansion to one thousand two hundred units.
Always leave room to grow.
Always.
That lesson applied equally to factories, mines, railways, and electrical systems.
He sat back for several moments before another realization surfaced.
Load diversity.
Not everyone switched on their lights simultaneously.
Not every building remained occupied all night.
Factories operated during different shifts.
Markets closed earlier than homes.
Government offices emptied before sunset.
Peak demand shifted depending upon the hour.
That meant installed capacity could remain lower than the simple sum of every connected lamp.
Another savings.
Perhaps significant.
He recalculated everything using diversity factors instead of maximum connected load.
The required generation immediately dropped.
Not dramatically.
Enough.
Enough to justify delaying construction of the third boiler until demand increased.
Millions of riels disappeared from the budget.
Ernest quietly nodded to himself.
This.
This was real engineering.
Not making machines larger.
Making systems smarter.
He looked around the study.
Electric lamps illuminated every corner without flickering.
Outside, somewhere beyond the windows, workers still relied upon oil lanterns to walk between buildings.
The contrast no longer represented two different technologies.
It represented two different eras.
Steam had transformed manufacturing.
Electricity would transform civilization.
Not because lamps glowed brighter than candles.
Because electricity ignored distance.
It could power factories kilometers away from the engine producing it.
It could illuminate streets without thousands of individual flames.
It could move energy itself.
The implications extended far beyond lighting.
One day there would be electric trams.
Electric motors in every workshop.
Electric pumps replacing steam-driven pumping stations.
Perhaps even electric railways.
He smiled faintly before shaking his head.
One problem at a time.
First Oriel.
Then Helmarte.
Only after that would he concern himself with the rest of the kingdom.
He gathered the scattered calculations into a single stack before writing one final heading across the top page.
Oriel Electrification Master Plan
The title looked ambitious.
Perhaps excessively so.
Then again, every great engineering project began as nothing more than ink on paper.
Tomorrow morning, the calculations would begin again.
Tonight, however, Ernest finally possessed something more valuable than numbers.
He possessed a direction.
For the first time since leaving the palace, he could clearly see the road from a single illuminated manor to an entire community powered by electricity.
It would be expensive.
It would be difficult.
It would take years.
But unlike when he had first arrived in this world with nothing more than memories from another life, he no longer wondered whether it could be done.
Now he only needed to decide where to begin.