Hydro Tasmania, known for most of its history as the Hydro-Electric Commission (HEC) or The Hydro, is the trading name of the Hydro-Electric Corporation, a

Tasmanian Government The Tasmanian Government is the democratic administrative authority of the state of Tasmania, Australia. The leader of the party or coalition with the confidence of the House of Assembly, the lower house of the Parliament of Tasmania, is invit ...

business enterprise which is the predominant

electricity Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as describ ...

generator in the state of

Tasmania ) , nickname = , image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdi ...

, Australia. The Hydro was originally oriented towards

hydro-electricity Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies one sixth of the world's electricity, almost 4500 TWh in 2020, which is more than all other renewable sources combined an ...

, due to Tasmania's dramatic topography and relatively high rainfall in the central and western parts of the state. Today Hydro Tasmania operates thirty hydro-electric and one

gas Gas is one of the four fundamental states of matter (the others being solid, liquid, and plasma). A pure gas may be made up of individual atoms (e.g. a noble gas like neon), elemental molecules made from one type of atom (e.g. oxygen), or ...

power station, and is a joint owner in three wind farms. The Minister for Energy, currently the Hon. Guy Barnett MP, has portfolio responsibility for Hydro Tasmania. Hydro Tasmania operates under the ''Government Business Enterprises (GBE) Act'' 1995 and the ''Hydro-Electric Corporation Act'' 1995, and has a reporting requirement to the Treasurer of Tasmania, currently the Hon. Michael Ferguson (Australian politician) MP. Hydro Tasmania was projected to pay the Tasmania Government a dividend of 42 million in 2016.

History

Establishment

In 1914, the State Government set up the Hydro-Electric Department (changed to the Hydro-Electric Commission in 1929) to complete the first HEC power station, the Waddamana Hydro-Electric Power Station. Prior to that two private

hydro-electric Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies one sixth of the world's electricity, almost 4500 TWh in 2020, which is more than all other renewable sources combined an ...

stations had been opened the Launceston City Council's Duck Reach Power Station, opened 1895 on the

South Esk River The South Esk River, the longest river in Tasmania, is a major perennial river located in the northern region of Tasmania, Australia. Location and features The South Esk springs from the eastern foothills of the Ben Lomond plateau near Mathinn ...

(it was one of the first

power stations in the southern hemisphere.

Reefton Power Station Reefton Power Station supplied electricity to the very prosperous gold mining town of Reefton in New Zealand and was the first power station to supply municipal electricity in the Southern Hemisphere.New Zealand Historical Atlas'' – McKin ...

in New Zealand is the first municipal hydro-station, beginning operations in 1888) and the

Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company was a Tasmanian mining company formed on 29 March 1893, most commonly referred to as ''Mount Lyell''. Mount Lyell was the dominant copper mining company of the West Coast from 1893 to 1994, and was based in ...

's Lake Margaret Power Station, opened in 1914. These power stations were taken over by the HEC and Duck Reach was closed in 1955. Lake Margaret was closed in 2006, but after a multimillion-dollar refit was recommissioned in 2009. Following the Second World War in the 1940s and early 1950s, many migrants came to Tasmania to work for the HEC with construction of dams and sub-stations. This was similar to the

Snowy Mountains Scheme The Snowy Mountains Scheme or Snowy scheme is a hydroelectricity and irrigation complex in south-east Australia. The Scheme consists of sixteen major dams; nine power stations; two pumping stations; and of tunnels, pipelines and aqueducts that ...

in New South Wales and similar effects in bringing in a significant number of people into the local community enriching the social fabric and culture of each state. Most constructions in this era were concentrated in the centre of the island. As the choice of rivers and catchments in the central highlands were exhausted, the planners and engineers began serious surveying of the rivers of the west and south west regions of the state. The long term vision of those within the HEC and the politicians in support of the process, was for continued utilisation of all of the state's water resources. As a consequence of such a vision, the politicians and HEC bureaucrats were able to create the upper Gordon river power development schemes despite worldwide dismay at the loss of the original Lake Pedder. The hydro-industrialisation of Tasmania was seen as paramount above all, and the complaints from outsiders were treated with disdain.

Interrupted dam making

Following the flooding of

Lake Pedder Lake Pedder, once a glacial outwash lake, is a man-made impoundment and diversion lake located in the southwest of Tasmania, Australia. In addition to its natural catchment from the Frankland Range, the lake is formed by the 1972 damming of the ...

by the HEC for the upper Gordon Power Development and the subsequent backlash against the HEC incursions into the south west wilderness of

Tasmania ) , nickname = , image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdi ...

, environmental groups of the 1970s and 80s alerted the rest of Australia to the continued power that the HEC had over the Tasmanian environment and politics. Numbers of Tasmanian politicians either rose or fell on their alignment with the support of the HEC and its power development schemes in the south west and West Coast of Tasmania. When the HEC proposed a dam on the Gordon River, sited below the Franklin River, there was widespread and vigorous opposition. During the Franklin River 'No Dams' campaign it was common for members of families to be in conflict with one another by being aligned with the HEC proposals or the Conservationists. The Tasmanian Labor Government attempted to resolve the dispute by offering a compromise dam, sited on the Gordon River above the Olga River, which would have avoided flooding the Franklin River. However, almost no-one wanted this compromise. Conservationists were concerned that the Franklin River area and surrounding wilderness would be damaged, and those in favour of a dam preferred an option that would utilise the Franklin's water as well as the Gordon's water. The Tasmanian Government then offered a referendum on the issue, which only offered two choices: the Gordon below Franklin dam and the Gordon above Olga dam. There was widespread condemnation that the referendum did not offer a 3rd choice of not having any dam on the Gordon River, and various opinions were offered as to the best way of communicating this at the ballot box. As it turned out, of the 92% of eligible voters to attend the voting booths that day, 47% voted for the Gordon below Franklin option, with the remainder voting informally (45%) or for the Gordon above Olga option (8%). The conservationists were ultimately successful in their campaign to stop any dam on the Gordon River, and the proposal and early works on the Gordon-below-Franklin Dam ended in 1983 when it was blockaded by the environmentalists and the recently elected Liberal State Government lost a High Court challenge to the Commonwealth's powers. The new Hawke Labor Government in Canberra had opposed the Franklin dam and had moved to stop its construction. The compromise between the State and Federal government and conservationists led the HEC to see the end of an over fifty year long dam making enterprise in the construction of the Henty River and King River power developments.

The limits reached

The conservationists and the HEC in the 1980s acknowledged that there were a limited range of options for further power development schemes, and it was inevitable that the substantial workforce within the HEC specifically employed in the investigation and development of further dams would eventually become redundant. Since the late 1990s HEC water storages have been progressively drawn down due to power demand exceeding long term supply, the overcoming of which was the original reason the Gordon-below-Franklin dam was proposed. The shortfall has been offset first by drawing down water storage and in latter years through increasing volumes of fossil fuel power generation, at first fuelled by oil and more recently by gas and, via the

Basslink The Basslink () electricity interconnector is a high-voltage direct current (HVDC) cable linking the electricity grids of the states of Victoria and Tasmania in Australia, crossing Bass Strait, connecting the Loy Yang Power Station, Victoria on ...

cable link to Victoria, coal.

From HEC to Hydro Tasmania

In the early 1990s, eastern state governments prepared for the

National Electricity Market The National Electricity Market (NEM) is an arrangement in Australia's electricity sector for the connection of the electricity transmission grids of the eastern and southern Australia states and territories to create a cross-state wholesale el ...

(NEM) and electricity deregulation. In anticipation of Tasmania joining NEM, the Hydro-Electric Commission was broken up on 1 July 1998, creating three separate state-owned companies: * Hydro Tasmania, the electricity generator. * Transend Networks, the electricity transmitter. Transend has since merged with Aurora's distribution arm to form TasNetworks. * Aurora Energy, the electricity distributor and

retailer Retail is the sale of goods and Service (economics), services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturing, manufacturers, dire ...

, which sells and distributes electricity to customers. Tasmania joined NEM in May 2005. Starting from the 1990s, Hydro Tasmania has been investing in wind farms, the first one being the Huxley Hill Wind Farm on King Island, which was completed in 1998. This was followed by two wind farms at Woolnorth with a combined capacity of 140MW. Construction of a fourth power station, the Musselroe Wind Farm with a generating capacity of 168 MW was completed in 2013. It was argued in support of the

privatization Privatization (also privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when ...

of Hydro Tasmania that it would result in an increase in revenue and an improvement in company efficiency. The Liberals supported privatisation in the 1990s but failed to convince the public of its merits. They have now reversed this policy. The Labor Party and the

Tasmanian Greens The Tasmanian Greens are a political party in Australia which developed from numerous environmental campaigns in Tasmania, including the flooding of Lake Pedder and the Franklin Dam campaign. They form a part of the Australian Greens. The party ...

have never openly supported privatisation; however many speculate that the Labor Party will support this move in the future. Some evidence of this first arose in late 2003 when a Labor government allowed Hydro Tasmania to sell its subsidiary software business, Hydstra, to a German competitor and again in 2005 when it allowed the sale of part of its financial interests in wind farm company, Roaring 40s to a Hong Kong-based company CLP Power Asia. However, the present policy of all three major political parties is against privatisation, and community opinion mostly supports

public ownership State ownership, also called government ownership and public ownership, is the ownership of an industry, asset, or enterprise by the state or a public body representing a community, as opposed to an individual or private party. Public ownershi ...

. Hydro Tasmania in the 2000s saw the loss of the old dam building generation. The Anthony Power Development, was considered to be part of the last hydro-electric power development in Tasmania. In 2008, the ''1,000 GWH Project'' saw upgrades to parts of existing structures operated by the Hydro, and on-going progress towards being a carbon neutral operation. In 2020, Tasmania has an annual

renewable electricity Renewable energy is energy that is collected from renewable resources that are naturally replenished on a human timescale. It includes sources such as sunlight, wind, the movement of water, and geothermal heat. Although most renewable energy ...

capacity of 10 TWh, equivalent to its average annual electricity consumption.

2016 crisis

In early 2016, as Tasmania was reaching the lowest water levels ever encountered, there was a fault in Basslink which led to the shutdown of the link to the mainland for about 6 months creating the 2016 power crisis. After Basslink came operational in 2006, the

Bell Bay Power Station The Bell Bay Power Station was a power station located in Bell Bay, on the Tamar River, Tasmania, Australia, adjacent to the Tamar Valley Power Station, with which it was often confused. It was commissioned between 1971 and 1974 as an oil fir ...

was decommissioned in 2009, resulting in a reduction of electricity generation capacity of , and leaving only

Tamar Valley Power Station Tamar Valley Power Station is a $230 million natural gas-fired power station located in Bell Bay in the Tamar Valley, Tasmania. It is owned by Hydro Tasmania, and is immediately adjacent to the decommissioned Bell Bay Power Station, which is al ...

as a non-hydro power station. That plant had been mothballed and was to be sold when the crisis took place. The plant was recommissioned because of the crisis restoring a capacity of about and diesel generators were brought in from the mainland with a generating capacity of .

Power Stations

Gas (thermal)

Gas turbine

Hydroelectric

Wind farms

Key officeholders

Ministers

* The Hon. Sir John C McPhee (1930–1934) * The Hon. Sir Walter Lee (1934) * The Hon. T.H. Davies (1934–1942) * The Hon. Sir Robert Cosgrove(1942–1958) * The Hon.

Eric Reece Eric Elliott Reece, AC (6 July 190923 October 1999) was Premier of Tasmania on two occasions: from 26 August 1958 to 26 May 1969, and from 3 May 1972 to 31 March 1975. His 13 years as premier remains the second longest in Tasmania's history, On ...

(1958)

References

External links

* http://www.hydro.com.au Hydro Tasmania
http://www.momentumenergy.com.au
Momentum * http://www.entura.com.au Entura * https://web.archive.org/web/20060821115426/http://www.parks.tas.gov.au/wha/wherein/detail.html {{EnergyTasmania Hydro-Tasmania 1914 establishments in Australia 1998 disestablishments in Australia 2016 Tasmanian energy crisis