Brown, Boveri and Co
Electrical engineers, of Baden, Switzerland.
See also British Brown-Boveri
1891 BBC Brown Boveri was founded by Charles Eugene Lancelot Brown and Walter Boveri. Brown Boveri’s first generator factory was built in Oerlikon, Switzerland.
1893 BBC supplied Europe’s first large-scale combined heat and power plant producing alternating current.
1900 Was the first European company to licence Parsons' turbine patents[1].
1900s Brown Boveri took the lead in electrification of Europe’s railway network by electrifying, at its own risk, a 20-km line on behalf of the Swiss Federal Railways using 3-phase electification.
1912 Developed the steel enclosed mercury arc rectifier[2].
c.1914 Brown Boveri supplied the world’s largest steam turbine (40,000 h.p.). Steam turbines became the company's largest and most important product. Set up subsidiaries all over the world but with the main operations in Switzerland and Germany.
By the 1920s, the European Westinghouse Companies had been sold to Brown, Boveri and Co.
1924 The title of Brown, Boveri and Co of Trafalgar House, Waterloo-place, London, SW1 was changed to British Brown-Boveri.[3]
1939 BBC built the first combustion gas turbine for generating electricity.
1944 BBC developed the first high-speed electric locomotive with drive shafts fitted exclusively in bogies.
1986 The Group employed 97,000 people.
Formation of ABB
1988 Merger between ASEA AB of Sweden and BBC Brown Boveri Ltd forming ABB (ASEA-Brown Boveri) with 850 subsidiary companies and 180,000 employees operating in 140 countries. The merged entity became the world’s leading supplier in the electric power industry. At that time ABB controlled as much as a third of Europe’s business and more than 20 percent of the world market. The two parent companies retained their separate names, boards and stock listings.
1989 ABB acquired Combustion Engineering of USA, boiler maker[4]
1989 British Rail Engineering (1988) Limited was purchased by a group consisting of ABB (40%), Trafalgar House (40%) and management (20%) forming BREL.
1995 ABB acquired and combined all of the Ljungstrom Air Preheater interests from USA, Japan, Germany, Czech Republic & Brazil
1996 ASEA AB and BBC Brown Boveri AG changed their names to ABB AB and ABB AG, respectively. BREL was later bought out by ABB to form ABB Transportation Ltd. ABB Transportation was subsequently merged with Daimler-Benz to form ADtranz (ABB-Daimler Benz Transportation)
1999 Creation of joint venture ABB ALSTOM Power
2000 ALSTOM acquired ABB’s JV share of the Ljungstrom air preheater business and operated it as part of ALSTOM Power.