SS Jacona
SS Jacona in January of 1919
|
|
| History | |
|---|---|
| Builder: | Todd Dry Dock and Shipbuilding Company |
| Completed: | 1919 |
| General characteristics | |
| Tonnage: | 7,000-ton |
| Length: | 396 ft (121 m) |
| Beam: | 53 ft (16 m) |
| Installed power: | Steam |
SS Jacona was the first floating electric power plant. This powership was a cargo ship converted to a mobile electric generator plant for emergencies. It was used by the United States Navy during World War II and supplied electric power to South Korea on a temporary basis.
Jacona was a 7,000-ton steam-driven cargo ship. The vessel was made for the United States Shipping Board. Jacona was 396 feet (121 m) long and 53 feet (16 m) wide. The concept for a floating mobile power plant in the form of an ocean going ship was conceived by Walter Scott Wyman. The design engineering was done by Nepsco Services.Jacona was the world's first sea-going electric generator powership.
Launched on November 30, 1918 and completed in April 1919 by the Todd Dry Dock and Shipbuilding Company of Tacoma, Washington. It was rebuilt in 1930 at the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company in Newport News, Virginia. They installed two separate 10,000-kilowatt turbines to make a power plant that could produce up to 20,000 kilowatts of electrical power at once. Jacona was then towed by tug to Bucksport, Maine, to be put into service. There it supplied the Maine Seaboard Paper Company mill with 24,121,000-kilowatt hours of power from November 1930 to March 1931. The mill otherwise could not obtain enough energy from other sources. It was placed as an interim power source until the Bingham Hydro Plant was completed and came on line.
When Jacona was no longer used at Maine, the New England Public Service Company anchored the ship at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and leased the electrical power it generated. It later bought the vessel outright from the United States Shipping Board. The electricity generated was connected to its city power transmission lines. It produced and supplemented about 15% of the total electrical power needed for Portsmouth and about 30% of its total steam power requirements. The steam was super-heated to 250 degrees and was at 400 pounds per square inch of pressure.
...
Wikipedia