St George County Council
It was the first of many county councils, which were an important part of the mixed economy that existed in New South Wales, during the interwar and post-war periods of the 20th Century.
The first electricity supply in the St George area, was that for Thomas Saywell's tramway, which ran from Rockdale railway station to the beach at Brighton-le-Sands.
An Act of the NSW Parliament, would have permitted Saywell to provide electric street lighting, for which he would have been paid, but it was never passed.
The government trams worked on a different current collection arrangement (one trolley pole and rail return).
[10][11] It was later stated that it was around the time, when Saywell's concession expired, that the idea of the St George area's being supplied with bulk power, from the NSW Railways, first took hold.
[5] However, Saywell's d.c. system was far too small, too unreliable, and too antiquated to serve the growing St George area.
Local government entities in New South Wales (municipalities and shires) originally had responsibility for supply and distribution of electrical power within their boundaries.
The St George County Council would be the first of this new type of trading entity in New South Wales, in 1920, but many more would be established by 1953.
Thereafter, the publicly owned county councils controlled all retail electricity distribution in New South Wales, each within their designated areas, seemingly as natural monopolies.
County councils were an important part of the mixed economy that existed in New South Wales, during the interwar and post-war periods of the 20th Century.
By 1919, SMC was unable to finance an extension, for such a large number of new consumers[20] and, in any case, its generating capacity was already committed to other parts of the metropolitan area.
[27] At that time, the transmission line was only to extend as far as Hurstville—where a large railway substation was later built[28]—meaning that Sutherland Shire reluctantly had to drop out of the proposed supply arrangement.
[33] The four St George municipalities had petitioned the Governor of New South Wales to declare their combined area a county.
The Minister for Local Government, Thomas Mutch, called the first meeting of the new county council, in early December 1920.
[34] The initial plans to electrify the St George area included lighting over 400 miles of streets.
[43] In December 1927, a new regulation was introduced mandating that any new domestic electricity connection, in the St George area, must include at least one power point.
[45] In mid 1922 land was resumed in Montgomery Street, Kogarah, where the first building housing the new county council was later constructed.
[45] In 1939, St George County Council opened a new building, Electricity House, in Forest Road, Hurstville, which was devoted to customer-facing services.
The basement level was used for a free appliance repair service and displays for domestic lighting, coppers (a large heated vessel used for boiling water and cleaning clothes) and washing machines.
[46] During the 1946 coal strike, which caused gas shortages, St George County Council offered a service to bake up to 500 Christmas cakes made by gas company customers, in the ovens used for cookery classes at Electricity House, and at its headquarters in Kogarah.
[46][48] The involvement of county councils in the retailing of appliances was somewhat controversial, and was opposed by private enterprise interests.
Insufficient generating capacity resulted in increasingly frequent black outs, exacerbated by strikes at power stations[53] and the 1949 coal industry strikes,[54][55] a cumulative lack of non-essential maintenance during wartime, breakdowns and lengthy repairs of critical items of equipment,[56][57] and an inability to procure new capital equipment due the longer-term impacts of wartime restrictions on industry and the disruption of international trade.
Critically, there was no single entity responsible for planning and implementation of all new generating and power transmission capacity, in New South Wales, at a time when a major expansion would inevitably occur.
Notably the Sydney County Council lost its two power stations, Pyrmont and Bunnerong, becoming only a distributor of electricity.
The people in control of the new ECNSW were not drawn from the SCC's management,[60][61] who had lost favour with the minister Joseph Cahill.
The site was in line with the SCC's prior practice of placing generation close to consumers, but there was local opposition to the proposal.
[67] The new station was to be SCC's means of increasing its generating capacity, in response to the power supply crisis, and was regarded as a priority project.
[68] ECNSW adopted the practice of siting power stations near coal mines, and using large transmission lines to feed centres of population, which had already begun to be implemented by Department of Railways and Southern Electricity Supply.
Section 12 of the Electricity Development Act 1945 (1946 No 13), provided that the Governor may, by proclamation, change the boundaries of a county council.
[87] Characterised as 'the poles and wires', Ausgrid was partially privatised by the sale of a 99-year lease of 50.4% of the entity to an Australian-based consortium of AustralianSuper and IFM Investors, in 2016, for a sum of $16 billion.
