Uno Lamm

Who was Uno Lamm?

August Uno Lamm was a Swedish electrical engineer and inventor, sometimes called "The Father of High Voltage Direct Current" power transmission.

Lamm was born in Gothenburg, on the Swedish west coast. He obtained his master's degree at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm in 1927. After a short time in compulsory military service he joined ASEA, the Swedish electrical conglomerate, initially working in their training program. In 1929 he was made manager of the project to develop a high-voltage mercury arc valve. Valves at the time operated only to about 2500 volts, and higher-voltage valves would have practical use in the transmission of large quantities of electric energy over long distances.

By 1943 Lamm obtained his Ph. D from the Royal Institute, studying part-time while also developing the mercury arc valve. After about twenty years of development work to produce a valve with the necessary rating for HVDC transmission, ASEA obtained an order for the HVDC Gotland project in 1950, which when completed in 1955 became the first modern fully commercial HVDC system.

In 1955 Lamm was made head of the ASEA project to develop Sweden's first commercial nuclear reactors.