On September 30, 1882, near Appleton, Wisconsin, the world's first hydroelectric central station began operation. The plant used a direct current generator capable of lighting 250 sixteen-candlepower lamps (each equivalent to 50 watts), operating at 110 volts and driven through gears and belts by a water wheel under a ten-foot fall of water. It was the first time electricity was commercially generated from hydropower, establishing the model that Niagara and the great 20th-century hydroelectric plants would later scale up.