Hydro Tasmania - From HEC To Hydro Tasmania

From HEC To Hydro Tasmania

Hydro Tasmania was formed on the disaggregation of the Hydro-Electric Commission on July 1, 1998. This resulted in the division of the formerly government owned department into three companies—Hydro Tasmania which generates the power, Transend Networks which transmits it across the state, and Aurora Energy, the retail arm, which sells and distributes it to customers. This was in anticipation of Tasmania joining the National Electricity Market, which occurred in May 2005.

Hydro Tasmania is presently (March 2010) a government owned enterprise. There is a case in Tasmania for the company to be privatised; both to raise revenue and to improve company efficiency. The Liberals supported privatisation in the 1990s but failed to convince the public of its merits. They have now reversed this policy. The Labor Party and the Tasmanian Greens have never openly supported privatisation; however many speculate that the Labor Party will support this move in the future. Some evidence of this first arose in late 2003 when Labor allowed Hydro Tasmania to sell its subsidiary software business, Hydstra, to a German competitor and again in 2005 when they allowed the sale of part of its financial interests in Wind Farm company, Roaring 40s to a Chinese company CLP Power Asia. However the present policy of all three major political parties is against privatisation and community opinion mostly supports public ownership.