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Production and Distribution of Electricity in Bordeaux, 1887–1956: Private and Public Operators

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2008

Alexandre Fernandez
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Extract

Like other cities, Bordeaux discovered the phenomenon of electricity by the end of the nineteenth century and tamed it during the first third of the twentieth century. Here, as elsewhere, one could follow the stages in the diffusion of the uses of electricity. But tackling the history of the electricity industry in Bordeaux means, perhaps more than elsewhere, getting involved with the evolution of the governing bodies which have dominated the process of electrification. Indeed, Bordeaux presents the case, very rare in France of a town which has known several juridical changes in the development of generation and distribution of electricity. From the start, until 1919, the construction of the network and its exploitation were taken care of by private companies. At this date, the Council appropriated the means of production and of distribution of electricity; the authority which was created then remained in existence beyond the general nationalisation of 1946, until 1956, when the city entrusted its electricity supply to the national company Electricité de France (EDF). How can these statutory changes be explained? We shall see that they can primarily be accounted for by shortcomings in the supply, whoever the operator may have been at the time. Indeed, in this field, supply first created demand and thus engendered the first faltering attempts in electricity. But, then, on several occasions, the electric power supply hit financial and technical snags. The change of juridical status then appeared as the solution to the people in charge.

Type
Articles
Information
Contemporary European History , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , July 1996 , pp. 159 - 170
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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References

1 Fernandez, A, Electricité et politique locale à Bordeaux, 1887–1956 (thereafter Fernandez, Electricité et politique locale) 2 vols, thesis (Université Michel de Montaigne-Bordeaux III, 1994).Google Scholar

2 Only one other big city had a municipal board of electricity in France, Grenoble.

3 Like these patterned by J. Schumpeter, see Chadeau, E., L'économie du risque, les entrepreneurs, 1850–1980 (Paris: O. Orban, 1988).Google Scholar

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11 Fernandez, A., ‘Bordeaux et l'hydro-électricité’, Annales du Midi, Vol. 105, no. 201 (1993), 45–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See Hughes, T. P., Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Societies, 1880–1930 (thereafter, Hughes, Networks of Power) (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983), 186.Google Scholar In Berlin, in 1896, the company BEW (Berliner Electricität Werke) had obtained that the covenant which linked to the town be reviewed according to the new possibilities offered by technical development.

12 Something like the discussions about the idea of ‘natural monopoly’; see Platt, H. L., ‘La ville électrique. Les réseaux régionaux d'énergie et la croissance de Chicago, 1893–1933’, Annales de la Recherche Urbains, no. 23–4 (1984), 204Google Scholar, citing McCurdy, C. W., ‘Justice Field and the Jurisprudence of Government-Business Relations’, Journal of American History, no. 61 (1975), 970–1, 005.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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14 Town Council, 17 June 1918.

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18 The growth of consumption of electricity in Bordeaux was as follows: 1920, 26,375,000 kWh; 1925, 53,700,000 kWh; 1930, 74,159,000 kWh; 1935, 83,759,000 kWh.

19 Town Council, 31 Aug. 1934.

20 See Figure 1.

21 Femandez, A., ‘L'installation d'un réseau urbain de distribution électrique: l'exemple bordelais’, in Réseaux électriques et installateurs des origines à nos jours (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1995), 21–32.Google Scholar

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23 See Figure 2.

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25 A councillor, Town Council, 5 March 1956.

26 The major, Jacques Chaban-Delmas, 5 March 1956.

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30 A power station in France is called a centrale because it ‘centralises’ the production of electricity.