Company History

The Power Commission of the City of Saint John (Civic Hydro) began as the result of efforts by a group of local citizens interested in having low cost electric power available in the city.

Saint John Common Council established the Power Commission of the City of Saint John on December 5, 1922, under the terms of a resolution which reads as follows:

"That a Commission to be called the Power Commission of the City of Saint John be appointed for the purpose of erecting, constructing, and operating works for the transmission and distribution of electrical power and energy in the City of Saint John, and of controlling and managing same as provided for in Section 28 of the New Brunswick Electric Power Act, 1920."

The first substation transformer was energized at the Cranston Avenue Substation on July 28, 1923, at 12:30 p.m. That first substation was manned by three power operators with 24 hour supervision. The Commission contracted the purchase of 10,000,000 kilowatt hours of energy a year from the New Brunswick Power Company. By the end of 1924, the Commission was serving 1,842 customers and within four years was selling more than the amount originally agreed to in the contract.

In 1948, the New Brunswick Electric Power Commission expropriated another electric power utility operating in Saint John at the time, the New Brunswick Power Company, and then sold the distribution system to Civic Hydro for $1,500,000. Merging the former New Brunswick Power with its own system, Civic Hydro saw its energy sales jump to 70,000,000 kilowatt hours in 1949.

The offices of Civic Hydro were located on Canterbury Street in the city's downtown area from 1924 to 1974. Over time this location was outgrown and in January of 1975, it relocated to its present location on Charlotte Street in Saint John where it has maintained its operations truck garage since 1960.

On August 1, 1997, the Commission changed its trade name from "Civic Hydro" to "Saint John Energy", a name better identifying the utility with the community. This change also saw the utility's corporate logo redesigned to incorporate the name change.

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