Newfoundland and Labrador Power Commission

The Newfoundland and Labrador Power Commission (NPC) is the former name of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro.

The NPC was created in 1954 by the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to provide rural electrification across the province. The Commission made its first significant development in 1958 when it installed a 200-kilowatt (kW) diesel generator at Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Labrador, although the first hydroelectric generating station in Labrador had been built at Menihek Lake in 1954 by the Iron Ore Company of Canada to supply electricity to the mining operations at Schefferville, Quebec.

In 1964, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador transferred the responsibility for the rural electrification programme from the NPC to the Newfoundland and Labrador Rural Electrification Authority.^[1] The Rural Electrification Authority was replaced by four Power Distribution Districts, which were consolidated into the Power Distribution of Newfoundland and Labrador in 1971.^[2]

In 1965 the NPC was reorganized and made responsible for the development of the province's first major hydroelectric project, Bay d’Espoir Hydro Electric Development. In conjunction with this project the NPC was directed to build an island-wide high-voltage transmission grid which would interconnect all of the island's larger generating and distribution facilities, as well as convert the 50-hertz districts on the island's west coast to the North American standard of 60 hertz.

In 1975, the Newfoundland and Labrador Power Commission was renamed the Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro Corporation.

References

1. ^ "Electrifying the Island" Retrieved 2011-08-01.
2. ^ Melvin Baker, "Rural Electrification in Newfoundland in the 1950s and the Origins of the Newfoundland Power Commission". Newfoundland Studies 6,2 (1990), 190-209 Retrieved 2011-08-01.