The organisation of electricity supply in Tasmania

In Australia there is only one electricity supply authority that carries out all eight facets of public electricity supply throughout a whole state. Tasmania's Hydro- Electric Commission (H.E.C.) investigates, designs, arranges finance, constructs, generates, transmits, distributes and regulates. To the public the H.E.C. must look like a monolithic technological bureaucracy; purposeful, effective and reaching out into every corner of the state. To anyone under 30 this has always seemed the case. However, it is merely the present form of an industry that has changed and continues to change. There have been five phases in the organisation of electricity supply in Tasmania. The H.E.C. and its predecessor the Hydro-Electric Department (H.E.D.) have been involved in four of them and have modified their policies and organisation to fit the needs of the times. This dissertation traces the evolution of one of Australia's better known quangos, (1) documents its unplanned emergence from a failed commercial venture and the fundamental events that shaped the organisation of electricity supply in Tasmania and eventually produced the H.E.C. The overriding conclusion is that technology has shaped the organisation. Not just the technology of electricity supply, but the supporting technologies, particularly communications and electro-metallurgy. There are, however, other influences; personal, economic, social and political, that have shaped various phases of the organisation's evolution and remain in its present structure.