11/07/2024
Tesla's discovery of a rotating magnetic field and an alternating multiphase system was among the first in the world to be applied by Vjekoslav pl. Meichsner - city engineer in Šibenik, with the support of Šibenik's mayor Ante Šupuk and his son Marko.
He gave the idea to build a hydroelectric power plant on the Krka River and to transmit electricity to Šibenik through an 11-kilometer transmission line. The power plant was designed, financed and built in a few years, and the main aggregates and machines were from Austria and from the Hungarian company "Ganz".
Šibenik was one of the first in the world to get public city lighting using alternating current , only later did European metropolises and other places apply it. HE Krka became operational after the construction of the transmission line to Šibenik on August 28, 1895, just two days after the first hydroelectric power plant in the world on the Niagara River. However, the hydroelectric power plant on Niagara managed to bring electricity to the 35 km distant city of Buffalo only the next year, in 1896, and at that time Šibenik was already lit up. The city was illuminated by public lighting, stylish balloons with a net in the shape of a drop, one of which still lights up in Krešimir's town.
In commemoration of August 28, 1895, when the hydroelectric power plant was put into operation, since 1995, that day has been celebrated as the Day of the Croatian Electric Industry. The Krka hydroelectric power plant (later called Jaruga I) on the Krka river waterfalls is one of the most historically important engineering breakthroughs in the world. At the same time, it is the oldest alternating current hydroelectric power plant in our area and as part of one of the first complete electric power systems in the world.
Photo: Ladislav Furac
