Waking up in Geelong

Have you ever looked up at a power pole in Melbourne and seen one of these warning signs? They are quite easy to see on older electricity poles that carry high voltage power lines through the streets.

So what do all those letters mean?

• H.V. stands for High Voltage (duh!);
• S.E.C. stands for State Electricity Commission.

The State Electricity Commission of Victoria (SECV) name should ring a bell for many in my audience: until the 1990s they were the monopoly electricity utility in the state of Victoria; operating power stations, maintaining power lines, and sending everyone a power bill every three months.

However, in the streets of Footscray there are some power poles with a slightly different looking sign. So who is this “F.C.C.”? To find out we need to go back to 1896…

Electricity generation in Victoria started out with a wide array of private companies moving into the emerging market of electric light and power. To regulate these companies in 1896 the first Electric Light and Power Act was introduced, and required these companies to obtain an Order-in-Council (O-I-C) to distribute electricity. The Act also said:

• Existing Council or company electricity supply undertakings were automatically entitled to obtain an O-I-C,
• Local Councils were able to take out non time limited O-I-Cs for their areas and could contract out construction and/or operation to other parties,
• Non local government bodies could only obtain O-I-Cs for public supply with the consent of the relevant local Council(s) for no more than 30 years, with the assets being able to be purchased by the Council(s) at the end of that time.

A number of local councils took up the option of taking out an O-I-Cs to operate which became known as Municipal Electricity Undertakings (MEUs), managing electricity distribution and retailing to their ratepayers. The City of Melbourne was the first MEU in 1897, with a key part of their system being the Spencer Street Power Station which supplied the inner city with electricity until the 1960s.

It took 13 years for the next MEU was established, by the City of Footscray in 1910, but by 1915 the number of MEUs had reached 11. The complete list of councils is as follows:

• City of Melbourne (1897)
• City of Footscray (1910)
• City of Brunswick (1912)
• City of Box Hill (1912)
• City of Port Melbourne (1912)
• City of Preston (1912)
• City of Northcote (1913)
• City of Heidelberg (1914)
• City of Coburg (1914)
• City of Doncaster & Templestowe (1914)
• City of Williamstown (1915)

At least that answers who the previously mentioned F.C.C. is – the Footscray City Council.

The other councils to set up MEUs took a different approach to the City of Melbourne, deciding against the expense of setting up their own power stations, and instead purchased electricity in bulk from one of the private companies that already operated a power station. These private companies also operated their own distribution and retail networks in other areas of Melbourne, and in many cases they were also responsible for some of Melbourne’s first electric tramways.

After the early burst of MEU establishments in inner Melbourne, no other councils joined the club, possibly due to a lack of inner-city residents still to be served. The supply of electricity to the rest of state had to wait until the establishment of the State Electricity Commission of Victoria by the government in 1920. Their mission was as follows:

• to inquire into and report to the Government on the measures which should be taken to achieve the ultimate co-ordination and amalgamation of all electrical undertakings in Victoria,
• to supply electricity in bulk to any statutory corporation or undertaking such as municipalities,
• to supply electricity to any person outside any area in which there is an existing undertaking and to Government departments and institutions.

These powers marked the end of the privately owned electricity undertakings, these being acquired by the SECV between 1922 and 1934. For the existing MEUs the only change was their bulk supplier of electricity, but the changes also prevented the formation of any new MEUs – the SECV would supply all other consumers.

This division of responsibilities with MEUs fed by bulk power from the SECV lasted into the 1990s – the JA Zone substation in inner Melbourne was one example of the schism, where the SECV operated the input transformers and switchgear from one control panel, while the Melbourne City Council Electrical Supply Department (MCCESD) managed the output side from a second panel down the hallway.

Eventually accounting for around 15 per cent of the state’s electricity supply, the end of the MEU came in 1994 when the Kennett government launched an extensive reform of the Victorian electricity industry. These changes saw the creation of the 5 electricity distribution companies based on geographic regions, taking over from the monolithic SECV and the 11 MEUs in inner Melbourne.

For their part in the reforms, each of the metropolitan councils entered into an MEU Transfer Agreement with the State of Victoria, and received a share of the profits from the privatisation of the new distribution companies.

Distribution of the funds was slightly complicated by the local government amalgamations carried out a few years before, as the 11 MEUs were now owned by 9 metropolitan councils – the new council LGA names along the left, the old council names in brackets, and the matching distribution company names along the top. Values are in millions of $.

The transfer agreements were signed in September 1994 and the proceeds were paid to councils between September 1995 and February 1996, this marking the end of Melbourne’s councils involvement in the Victorian electricity industry.

Further reading

• Transfer of Municipal Electricity Undertakings: a report by the Victorian Auditor General, May 1997. Look at page 92 onwards, part of the Report On Ministerial Portfolios.
• Early Electricity Supply in Melbourne: a paper by Miles Pierce detailing the undertakings of the Melbourne City Council along with the competing private operators.
• Victorian Government Gazette, July 3 1961: details all of the O-I-Cs issued in Victoria as of that date.

The full list of Orders-In-Council that established MEUs are as follows, taken from the previously mentioned 1961 Government Gazette: