New heritage signage celebrates 100-year history of local power grid

“Though there was only a moderate attendance at the Town Hall corner on Monday afternoon, where the first tension pole was erected in connection with the proposed installation of electricity, the proceedings were none the less enthusiastic.”

So reported the Orange Leader in January 1923, and the same could be said of the ceremony held at the very same location on Friday, February 24 to mark 100 years since Orange’s first power pole was first erected.

Outside the old Town Hall at the corner of Byng and Anson Street on Friday, Deputy Mayor, Councillor Gerald Power, and the CEO of Essential Energy, John Cleland, unveiled a new heritage sign at the site of the first pole, which remarkably is still standing a century on. 

“It's always important to remember our history and the milestones that brought us to where we are today,” Cr Power said at Friday’s ceremony, attended by past and present electrical workers, council staff and members of the Orange and District Historical Society.

“We've come a long way since the days of the late 1800s when Orange's city streets were illuminated by eighty gas-powered street lights,” he continued.

“In the early days, lamplighters would travel around 29 kilometres on horseback every evening to ignite the lamps, returning at midnight to extinguish them.” 

When the first pole went into the ground in Orange, there was no nationwide electricity grid, so the Council had to build its own electricity generation system and the local network of poles and wires, costing almost £39,000 or $3.6 million today.

The brick and iron powerhouse was located on the northeastern corner of Byng and Peisley streets and was built to cater to Orange’s population of 8,000, with provisions for the eventual supply to 40,000 people.

The timber power poles were sourced from the NSW north coast, and in January 1923 the Leader prophetically reported that: "The light poles are being laid in position, and, judging by their solidity, will last for a lifetime."

CEO of Essential Energy, John Cleland said the pole is a valuable piece of local history and has stood witness to the remarkable journey the energy sector has been on over the last 100 years.

“When this pole was stood, as Gerald mentioned, all the electrons that it was involved with, that it helped distribute were locally generated. In the decades since, the pole has seen all generation move away from Orange… to centrally located large-scale coal-fired and gas generation,” Mr Cleland said.

“Of course what we see now is a return to the past, back to the future if you like, where we are seeing a return to a higher level of local generation,” he continued, referencing the Flyers Creek Wind Farm, which is nearing completion, and the ever-increasing amount of rooftop solar in Orange and across the country.

“We stand beneath and beside this pole today and it is a wonderful witness to the amazing journey the electricity sector has been on over the last hundred years and of course, the change we’ll see in the next two, five, 10, 15 years will be extraordinary in terms of that return to a much higher proportion of local generation and of course the emergence of a much higher portion of renewable and low carbon generation.”

At the conclusion of the ceremony on Friday, a photograph of the pole and the gathering surrounding it was taken, a recreation of a photograph taken in 1923.