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. The Rural Electrification Authority was replaced by four Power Distribution Districts, which were consolidated into the Power Distribution of Newfoundland and Labrador in 1971.
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.
Famous quotes containing the words labrador, power and/or commission:
“That Cabot merely landed on the uninhabitable shore of Labrador gave the English no just title to New England, or to the United States generally, any more than to Patagonia.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We are expected to put the utmost energy, of every power that we have, into the service of our fellow men, never sparing ourselves, not condescending to think of what is going to happen to ourselves, but ready, if need be, to go to the utter length of self-sacrifice.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“Children cannot eat rhetoric and they cannot be sheltered by commissions. I don’t want to see another commission that studies the needs of kids. We need to help them.”
—Marian Wright Edelman (20th century)