
Slate Electrical Panel
1902 - 1930
The panel pictured on the left is from one of the Direct Current (DC) motor generators installed at Rossdale Power Plant before 1915. The material chosen for these panels needed to be not only durable, but also an excellant electrical insulator. Remarkably, at the time, the best choice for this application were panels cut from solid blocks of slate.
In the 1960s it was used to control DC power from a motor generator set, which was a back up for the generator exciters in the low pressure (LP) plant.