It all started in Bilbao
Bilbao is one of the most industrialised cities in Spain, which had important energy production companies and good railway connections.
It was there where they set up their company
The engineer Juan Urrutia and a businessman Fernando María de Ybarra both took their first steps in the mining sector, but they soon focused their efforts on the production and distribution of electricity.
The world was changing
In the 19th century, the Industrial Revolution had begun, supported by two great inventions: the steam engine and electricity.
The outbreak of the First World War
Led to widespread famine and an increase in the price of coal. Electricity was beginning to gain ground. Its applications, which would shape modern urban life, were still being investigated and implemented: the telephone, the tram or the radio, as well as the urban lighting and the first traffic lights.
It was then that Ybarra and Urrutia,
together with the support from other partners and banking entities, they founded SICE based on an agreement to obtain the patents of the companies that manufactured the most cutting-edge electrical technology at that time: General Electric and Thomson-Houston.
Although the main objective
of SICE was to manufacture its own machinery, the global economic crisis led them to work towards facilities such as railway electrification and the distribution of products manufactured by those companies.
At the end of their first year,
SICE had already been set up in Madrid and Barcelona. A few years later, they installed the first traffic lights in those cities to regulate traffic.