The Hydro was originally oriented towards hydro-electricity, 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 power station, and is a joint owner in three wind farms.

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.

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.

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 cable link to Victoria, coal.

Construction of a fourth power station, the Musselroe Wind Farm with a generating capacity of 168 MW was completed in 2013.

[2] It was argued in support of the privatization of Hydro Tasmania that it would result in an increase in revenue and an improvement in company efficiency.

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.

[11] 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.