Stations in Northern Manitoba are connected by a HVDC system, the Nelson River Bipole, to customers in the south.

The first public electric lighting installation in Manitoba was demonstrated at the Davis House hotel on Main Street, Winnipeg, March 12, 1873.

[5] Winnipeg city alderman John Wesley Cockburn (January 9, 1856 – November 9, 1924) had privately secured water rights for a development on the river.

[6] With these water rights, the City developed a generating station at Pointe du Bois on the Winnipeg River (which was completed in 1911 and which still operates early in the 21st century).

The City of Winnipeg utility built coal-fired steam generators in 1924 on Amy Street, which were also used for district heating of downtown buildings.

During World War Two, electric boilers at Amy Street used surplus hydroelectric power to economize on coal consumption.

One of the earlier wholesale accounts to be transferred to Manitoba Hydro in 1956 was the village of Emerson, which had been served up to that point by a cross-border tie to the Otter Tail Power system at Noyes.

In 1980, the Dorsey-Forbes-Chisago 500,000 volt transmission line interconnecting Manitoba Hydro with Northern States Power in Minnesota was put in service.

The stations at Kelsey, Kettle, Long Spruce and Limestone were built on the lower Nelson River to support both Manitoba load growth and export plans.

The great distance between generating sites on the Nelson River and load centers in southern Manitoba required the use of HVDC transmission lines to bring the energy to market.

Energy produced by this facility is subsidized by the Canadian Government's Wind Power Production Incentive, though over the life of the project tax revenue will exceed the value of the initial subsidy.

The Manitoba OASIS node has generator interconnection evaluation studies for wind farms at Elie, Lena, Darlingford, Boissevain, Killarney, and Minnedosa.

Additional probable wind farm sites of up to 200 MW are in the generation queue on the OASIS for St. Leon, St. Laurent, Letellier, Waskada, Alexander, Lizard Lake, Lk.

[10] The purpose of the Manitoba Hydro Act was to provide for efficient, economical supply of electric power for the needs of the province.

This position is not a full departmental portfolio in the Manitoba executive council, and it is generally held by ministers who also hold other cabinet responsibilities.

Transmission lines built in Manitoba must withstand a wide temperature range, ice, and occasional high winds.

During the several days required for utility employees to repair this line, power was imported from the United States over the 500 kV interconnection.

Manitoba Hydro also participates in "border accommodation" transfers, where it provides power to isolated extraprovincial end-use loads such as those of the Northwest Angle in Minnesota.

[28] This 200 MW station has three hydraulic turbine generator units, causes less than one half square kilometre of new flooding, and has only a small reservoir.

This partnership between NCN and Manitoba Hydro will allow advancement of the in-service date to 2012 and opportunities for additional export revenue.

A new 230 kV gas-insulated substation was constructed adjacent to the dam site, which will distribute power from the Wuskwatim generators to the transmission network.

One such project, Bipole III, has been discussed with communities on the east side of Lake Winnipeg, but this area is ecologically and culturally sensitive and power line construction will require extensive environmental impact assessment.

Concerns about the economy and efficiency of Manitoba Hydro's development program led the provincial government to form a commission of inquiry in 1977.

This status arose because of the history of electrification in the Province, where early private commercial developers required a large initial return on investment owing to the high risks of the projects.

Another unusual feature of Manitoba Hydro is that it is a completely integrated electrical utility, with generation, transmission, and distribution operations.

This means that Manitoba Hydro can consider the total system cost and benefits of any new development, rather than, for example, building generation capacity that relies on a second party for transmission.

Since this energy is typically sold on short-term contracts or even on a spot market, the returns on these sales increase Manitoba Hydro's retained earnings, allowing domestic rates to be stable and low.

Since Manitoba Hydro is a Crown Corporation paying no dividends and not obligated to provide a return on investment to shareholders, energy costs to industrial and residential consumers are lower than they would otherwise be.

For example, in the 1986 Manitoba provincial election, the incumbent New Democratic Party government announced accelerated construction of the Limestone project, with promises of increased employment as a result.

As part of the contract for the ten turbine-generator units, Canadian General Electric agreed to invest $10,000,000 CAD in Manitoba business operations, and to obtain at least 15 per cent of installation labour locally.