Shawinigan Water & Power Company
The Shawinigan Water and Power Company ( SW & P ) was an electricity supply companies in the Canadian province of Québec. The company was founded in 1889 has developed into a major supplier of electricity from hydropower and played an important role in the industrial development of the Mauricie region. 1963 SW & P was nationalized and went up in the Hydro-Québec.
History
John Joyce, a businessman from Boston, acquired by the provincial government for 50,000 dollars the water rights on the Rivière Saint- Maurice. He then founded on January 15, 1898 along with several partners, the Shawinigan Water and Power Company. The most significant contribution to the further development of the company made John Edward Aldred, until 1909, the first treasurer and later chairman until 1933. From the beginning held the SW & P to industrial customers out, that would be to large consumers. One in 1899 with the Pittsburgh Reduction Company (now Alcoa) contract concluded marked the beginning of the aluminum industry in Shawinigan. In the same year a contract was followed with the founders of the future Union Carbide.
1902 while the current production at the power plant Shawinigan -1 are added. The SW & P sought to provide current up to Montreal. To this end they built a 135 km long 50 kV overhead line. The commissioned in March 1903 line was considered a technological tour de force, as it was 100 km longer than the longest in North America ( between Niagara Falls and Buffalo ). With the advance in the Montreal market, the SW & P fell initially in conflict with the Montreal Light, Heat and Power ( MLH & P), which was in the process of establishing an energy monopoly in the metropolitan area. Finally, the two companies could not agree, shared the electricity market in the province of Quebec largely among themselves and formed as a result a powerful duopoly with only a few independent providers.
The SW & P expanded its production facilities at the Rivière Saint- Maurice from successively. 1911 was the power plant Shawinigan - 2 in operation, the oldest existing plant on the river. 1915 was followed by the power station Grand- Mère. To regulate the water flow of the power plants was 1916-1918 of 1302 km ² large Gouin Reservoir. The power plant La Gabelle was opened in 1924, the power plant Rapide -Blanc 1934. Followed La Tuque (1940 ), Shawinigan -3 ( 1948), trenches (1950) and Beaumont (1958).
After the nationalization of MLH & P and the establishment of Hydro-Québec in 1944, the SW & P is by far the largest remaining electricity supplier Québec was privately owned. Finally, 1963 was also the SW & P over to the State. With the exception of the power plant Shawinigan -1, which was decommissioned in 1949 and later canceled, all built by the SW & P facilities still in operation today. Around the power plant Shawinigan -2 exists since 1997, the Cité de l'Energie, a theme park, which deals with energy.