In 1895, Port-of-Spain was illuminated with electricity by the Trinidad Electric Company under the directorship of Edgar Tripp. This was not extended to San Fernando, which remained with darkness well into the 20th century.
A few of the larger businesses on High Street as well as a couple elegant homes on the heights of Springvale had electric power supplied by Delco plants, which were a kind of generating unit that stored a weak electric power in large lead-acid batteries. They were of little use other than as power for a few light bulbs. Delcos were also utilised in the Palace Cinema and other movie houses in the town.
As early as 1910, the issue was raised that San Fernando should perhaps procure its own power supply but appeals to the Colonial Government fell on deaf ears.
The Borough Council, under Mayor Charles H Gopaul decided to take matters into its own hands in 1921, being himself a prominent townsman and totally disgusted with the nonchalance of the central government to development of San Fernando. He applied for a mortgage on the town to central government and Governor Sir Hubert Wilson approved the San Fernando Loan Ordinance No 29 of 1921.
The intrepid town engineer, J J Waddell was instructed to undertake the necessary works to erect a power station on Carib Street, where the Borough Water Works had existed since 1881. The generator was a steam unit manufactured in the UK and cost $18,000. In conjunction with civil engineer A F Watson, the power station was completed and lines strung throughout the town. On December 15, 1923, Governor Sir Hubert Wilson threw on the main switch and the town was lit by electric light.
Initially, the poles extended only to King’s Wharf and the business district of High Street, but by 1925, homes in Paradise Pasture and Vistabella were connected. One of the original lightpoles can be seen in the centre of the junction of St James Street and Pointe-a-Pierre Road. The price of a unit of electricity was considerably higher than in Port-of-Spain because of the economies of scale. At the time, San Fernando barely had a population of 12,000 persons.
The power grid extended as far as Les Efforts (East), which was still a sugar estate and toward Vistabella along the Pointe-a-Pierre Road. Marabella was as yet still a ramshackle little village on the outskirts of the old Union sugar estate with its racecourse. Much of the private electrical wiring and general contracting work done in the town in the 1930s was executed by the resolute Raymond Dieffenthaller and his large emporium, Hardware and Oilfield Equipment Company Ltd.
In order to improve the service, additional steam generators were purchased in 1927, 1931 and 1935. The Borough Power Station had an enviable track record of service, since it performed with a minimal number of power outages, the most noteworthy being during the industrial unrest of the Butler era (1936-37) and during World War II when fuel supplies for the generators were rationed.
At this time, fuel was often in short supply since every possible drop was needed for the war effort in Europe. With the advent of T&TEC and the construction of the Penal Power Station in 1953, the San Fernando Borough Power Station closed in 1954 with the generators being sold to T&TEC. The power system was removed to Penal which was a state-of-the-art facility with huge turbines fuelled by natural gas.
This gas did not come from offshore wells (which were many years in the future) but from a reservoir on Clarke Road where some of the original piping and valves can be seen today inside the Petrotin compound at that location.
The old power station is historically significant because it was the first municipally-owned power station in the British Empire. The factory shell was renovated in 1939 to make room for the additional generators, considerably altering the original appearance. In 1986, much talk was centred on making the old power station a museum and cultural centre but of course, nothing was ever accomplished in this direction.
Today, the building still stands on Carib Street exhibiting its ‘new’ (1939) frontage and serves as the transport yard for the San Fernando City Corporation. Inside the compound, there is not much to be seen except the old administration office and a pump-house for the Borough Water Works which dates back to 1881, which was yet another institution for which the town had fought bitterly…another story for another day.