Springfield contains a prosperous gas system, and the gross income there from the sale of gas was thirty-one per cent greater in 1902 than in 1897. During this same period of five years the gross income from sales of electrical energy, developed in large part by water-power, increased forty-seven per cent. For the five years of general depression, ending in 1897 gross annual income of gas sales in Springfield rose only five per cent, and the like electric income nine per cent. In the five years last named the electrical supply system was operated with coal.
The application of transmitted water-power in electrical supply has displaced steam as a motive power in many large industrial plants that never would have been operated from steam-driven electric stations. An example of this sort exists at Portland, where one of the motors operated by the electric water-power system, in an industrial plant, has a capacity of 300 horse-power. Every pound of coal burned in Concord, N. H., is hauled by the single steam railway system entering that city, which railway operates large car and repair shops there. Some years ago the railway installed a complete plant of engines, dynamos, and motors for electric-driving throughout these shops. These engines and dynamos now stand idle and the motor equipment, with an aggregate capacity of 590 horse-power, is operated with energy purchased from the local electrical supply system and drawn from water-power.
Another striking example of the ability of electric water-power systems to make power rates that are attractive to large manufacturers may be seen at Manchester, N. H. One of the largest manufacturing plants in that city purchases energy for the operation of the equivalent of more than 7,000 incandescent lamps, and of motors rated at 976 horse-power, from the electrical supply system there, whose generating stations are driven mainly by water-power. The Manchester electrical supply system also furnishes energy, through a sub-station of 800-horse-power capacity, to operate an electric railway connecting Manchester and Concord. This electric line is owned and operated in common with the only steam railway system of New Hampshire, so that the only inducement to purchase energy from the water-power system seems to be one of price.