There is a good history book about the rivalry between the two men starting their respective power companies, although I had thought Tesla was the DC champion & Edison for the AC, and it was Edison's company which was victorious which was part of the reason why AC is the common method of current we use today. Although this could be my simplified remembrance of the book.

Anyway, the setting I had imagined was more fantastical rather than alternate history, so I like that your proposal uses the basic concept but with something new. But my original idea revolved around electromagnetic fields, the kind which are generated around any electric current despite power source--it's the electromagnetic field which opens a gap in the fabric of reality & allows 'bad things' from another dimension to peek through.

But, the really intriguing part of your proposal suggests that one man intends to open up these portals into another dimension while the other might think his method does something different or better when really it does about the same thing.

All right, but there are plenty of possibilities here. The first to suggest itself is the idea of rural electrification. Maybe the cities have already been electrified, but our story takes place in the rural Midwest where folks are concerned that everyone in the cities have gone completely mad: there are stories about mad operas in city performance halls, factories building great machines of war, music created by this electric current. And now the government wants to build power lines across the Midwest & bring this thing into our homes! Time to get out the shotgun.... I was going to say get in the truck, but without electricity our generic farmer would get on his steam tractor instead. Maybe too comical to work....