Oskar von Miller

Oskar von Miller was a German engineer who helped build Germany's early electric power industry and pioneered long-distance electricity transmission. On September 16, 1882, working with the French engineer Marcel Deprez, he helped transmit electric current roughly 60 kilometers from Miesbach to an exhibition hall in Munich, one of the first demonstrations that power could be sent usefully over a long distance rather than only generated where it was consumed. Miller went on to build Munich's first power station in 1884, helped direct the German Edison Company that introduced Thomas Edison's electric lighting system to Germany, and later oversaw construction of the Walchensee hydroelectric power station, one of the largest high-pressure hydroelectric plants in the world when it was completed in 1924. He also founded the Deutsches Museum, which opened in Munich in 1925.