The plant was used for civilian power service in Maine and New Hampshire until March 1945 and then delivered to the War Shipping Administration.

[8] The novel idea for a floating mobile power plant in the form of an oceangoing ship was conceived by the president of the New England Public Service company of Augusta, Maine, Walter S.

Terms required the new owner to convert the vessel on or before April 2, 1931, into a floating power plant removing all propelling machinery, not to use in any way for transport and spending not less than $1,000,000 for the conversion.

[8] The power plant boilers were designed so that they could be converted to use powdered coal instead of fuel oil.

[16] After conversion, permanent berthing facilities were provided at Bucksport, Maine, and Portsmouth, New Hampshire, so that Jacona could produce power at either location.

[11] There it supplied the Maine Seaboard Paper Company mill with 24,121,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity from November 1930 to March 1931.

[A] When Jacona was no longer used at Maine, the New England Public Service Company anchored the ship at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and leased the electrical power it generated.

The hull was inspected by divers annually and the vessel had been put into dry dock at Portsmouth after tow by three tugs in 1934 and 1939 for about five days each time.

[21] On March 17, 1945, Jacona was delivered to the War Shipping Administration (WSA) at Portsmouth by the Public Service Company of Manchester, New Hampshire, and placed under bareboat charter to the U.S.

[6][22] The first duty after shakedown for the Navy tug Nipmuc, commissioned July 8, 1945, was to tow Jacoma from the Atlantic to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

[6] From March 1946 to December 1947 the barge was leased by the Hawaiian Electric Company, Inc. to supplement its grid when post war building material shortages delayed completion of its Waiau Power Plant Unit 3.

[24] The tug Takelma departed Hawaii on January 6, 1948, towing Jacona to Pusan, Korea.

[27] The U.S. government flew in spare parts to make the necessary repairs to the generators and later the power was restored from the ship.