1873–1960: electric power before Manitoba Hydro The first recorded attempt to extract useful work from a Manitoba river was in 1829 at a flour mill (known as Grant's Mill) located on Sturgeon Creek in what is now Winnipeg. This was not successful and the milling equipment was later operated by a
windmill. The first public electric lighting installation in Manitoba was demonstrated at the Davis House hotel on Main Street,
Winnipeg, March 12, 1873. In 1880, the Manitoba Electric and Gas Light Company was incorporated to provide public lighting and power, and a year later absorbed the Winnipeg Gas Company. In 1893, the
Winnipeg Electric Street Railway Company was formed, and initially purchased power from Manitoba Electric and Gas, but by 1898, it had built its own 1000-
horsepower (750 kW) generating plant and purchased Manitoba Electric and Gas. The first hydroelectric plant in Manitoba operated north of
Brandon from 1901 to 1924. Private investors built a earth-fill dam across the Minnedosa River (now known as the
Little Saskatchewan River) about a kilometer from its junction with the
Assiniboine River. The plant only operated part of the year, with the load carried in the winter months by
steam generators. An 11-kV wood-pole transmission line connected the station with the town of Brandon, Manitoba. The dam washed out in 1948 but remains are still visible. A second plant was built by private investors near
Minnedosa in 1912 but low water levels meant that it only operated intermittently. In 1920 the plant was replaced by a diesel station owned by the Manitoba Power Commission. The dam still exists today at Minnedosa Lake. By 1906, Winnipeg Electric Street Railway had constructed a hydroelectric plant on the Winnipeg River near
Pinawa, and of 60-kV transmission line. This plant operated year-round until 1951, when it was shut down to allow improved water flow to other Winnipeg River stations. Its remains are still preserved as a provincial park. as of 1908. Since the investor-owned Winnipeg Electric Street Railway was charging twenty cents per kilowatt-hour, the City of Winnipeg founded its own utility in 1906,. Winnipeg city alderman
John Wesley Cockburn (January 9, 1856 – November 9, 1924) had privately secured water rights for a development on the river. 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). In reaction to this, Winnipeg Electric Street Railway dropped prices to ten cents per kilowatt-hour, but the City-owned utility (Winnipeg Hydro) set a price of 3.5 cents per kilowatt-hour which held for many decades. In 1916, the Province established the Manitoba Power Commission with the object of bringing electric power to communities outside of Winnipeg.
Winnipeg Hydro, Winnipeg Electric Street Railway Company and the Manitoba Hydro Commission all built extensive hydroelectric generating facilities on the Winnipeg River during the period 1916 through 1928. The
Great Depression starting in 1929 put an end to rapid growth until after
World War II. 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. The City utility also implemented load management on electric water heaters, which allowed them to be turned off during the day and during peak load periods. In 1949 the Province set up a new utility, the Manitoba Hydro Electric Board (MHEB). In 1953 the MHEB acquired the assets of the Winnipeg Electric Street Railway. The MHEB was tasked with
bringing electric power to the rural parts of Manitoba, a task which took until around 1956 to substantially complete. By 1955 there were three utilities in the province: • Manitoba Power Commission (Provincial Government) • Manitoba Hydro Electric Board (Provincial Government) • Winnipeg Hydro Electric System (City of Winnipeg government). Two
thermal (coal-fired) stations were built at Brandon and Selkirk starting in 1958. These units were intended to operate during low-water years, and burned
lignite coal. In 1957, the first transmission line between Manitoba and North-West Ontario was installed. In 1960, a 138-kV connection to Saskatchewan Power Corporation was completed, and it was later uprated to 230 kV.
1961 to date: the Manitoba Hydro era The Manitoba Power Commission and Manitoba Hydro Electric Board merged in 1961 to form Manitoba Hydro. 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. The last of the private mine-owned utility systems at
Flin Flon was purchased by Manitoba Hydro in 1973. The early 1970s also marked the installation of tie lines between Manitoba Hydro and utilities in Ontario, Saskatchewan and Minnesota. The interconnection with the American utilities (Otter Tail Power,
Northern States Power, and Minkota Power Cooperative) were used to obtain firm power of 90 MW for the winter of 1970; and since that time these interconnections have also been used for export of energy. In the period 1974 to 1976, Manitoba Hydro was still studying
nuclear power, but it concluded that all hydraulic resources should be developed first before construction of any nuclear facility. Although a research nuclear reactor existed at the
Pinawa AECL research facility, no nuclear generating capacity has ever been constructed in Manitoba. In 1980, the Dorsey-Forbes-Chisago 500,000 volt transmission line interconnecting Manitoba Hydro with Northern States Power in
Minnesota was put in service. In July 1999, Manitoba Hydro purchased the natural gas distribution company
Centra Gas Manitoba. In September 2002, Manitoba Hydro purchased
Winnipeg Hydro, which formerly provided electric power in the
downtown area of
Winnipeg.
Nelson River development The water power potential of the Nelson River was described as early as 1911, when over 6 million
horsepower of potential generation capacity was identified at 11 sites – at a time when the developed hydropower in the rest of Canada was around 1 million horsepower. Between 1955 and 1960, studies were carried out to determine what resources would be available for future hydraulic generation. 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. Limestone, the largest generating station in Manitoba, is located on the Lower Nelson only 90 km from
Hudson Bay. Long-term firm power sales contracts were signed with Northern States Power. Control dams have turned
Lake Winnipeg, the 12th largest lake in the world, into a 25,000 km2 reservoir for the Nelson River generation system. 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. When these lines were commissioned, they were the longest and highest-voltage direct current lines in the world. The Dorsey converter station is 26 km north-west of the center of Winnipeg.
Wind development Starting in 2005, a
wind farm was built near St. Leon, Manitoba. Power generated by this privately constructed plant is purchased by Manitoba Hydro for distribution on its network. The capacity of this installation is 99.9 MW, comprising 63
wind turbines of 1.65 MW each. This is the first privately owned grid-connected generation to be constructed in Manitoba in nearly fifty years. 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 138 megawatt
St. Joseph Wind Farm began operation in 2011. Multiple wind farm sites with capacities between 50 and 200 MW have been studied for Manitoba. 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. Manitoba Narrows and other locations.
Winnipeg Hydro Winnipeg Hydro is a former provider of electrical power for the city of
Winnipeg,
Manitoba. Winnipeg Hydro was established in 1906 and was purchased by Manitoba Hydro in 2002. In 1906, voters approved a $3.25 million expenditure for development of a hydroelectric plan at Pointe du Bois. Immediately following the decision to build the Pointe du Bois plant, the price of electricity charged by the private sector in Winnipeg dropped from 20 cents per kilowatt-hour to 10 cents and subsequently to 7 1/2 cents. After completion of the plant in 1911, Winnipeg Hydro set its rate at 3 1/3 cents per kilowatt-hour. This rate remained unchanged until 1973. Customers of Winnipeg Hydro enjoyed among the lowest electricity rates in North America. In September 2002, Winnipeg Hydro officially closed its doors embarking on a new era as part of Manitoba Hydro. ==Manitoba Hydro Act==