The Electricity Commission of New South Wales and its place in the rise of centralised coordination of bulk electricity generation and transmission 1888 - 2003

Between 1950 and 1995, the Electricity Commission of New South Wales had a virtual monopoly on the generation and transmission of bulk electricity within New South Wales. Created as a single public statewide generation and transmission utility, the Electricity Commission rectified a fragmented generation industry’s failure to resolve the severe power restriction and blackouts following World War Two. The main theme of this thesis is the transformation of the pre-1950 fragmented New South Wales electricity generation and transmission industry into a coordinated industry in which reliability of supply was paramount. The discussion focuses on the interconnection of high voltage networks, and the rise of coordinated control of the industry from small isolated power stations, through large uncoordinated systems, a statewide coordinated system to the interconnection with similar coordinated interstate systems. As electricity generating and transmission technologies are a major contributor to industrial, commercial and residential prosperity, the interplay between society and technology features in the discussion. While the contributions of a small number of senior public servants and politicians are discussed, this does not diminish the contribution of the thousands of industry employees both past and present. The study concludes that the Electricity Commission’s ability to remain at the centre of the New South Wales energy industry was based on being able to provide a reliable supply. Political expediency created the organisation in 1950; technology sustained it, and in the mid to late 1990s, despite a history of the provision of a reliable supply, it was political expediency that hastened its demise. The organisation’s status as being Australia’s largest electricity generating utility for much of the second half of the twentieth century did not ensure its continued existence in the liberalised, competitive, national electricity market of the twenty-first.