When the Board began operations on 1 April 1948, it incorporated the distribution services and areas of 31 local authorities and 11 companies. Two other company areas, of the Shropshire, Worcestershire and Staffordshire Electric Power Co. and the West Gloucestershire Power Co., were added a year later when the assets in Wales had become separated from those in England.[2] There were enormous variations in the size of the constituent areas varied enormously in size. West Cambrian Power covered about 1,796 square miles while Cwmbran Urban District occupied an area of around six square miles.
With a total area of about 4,556 square miles and an estimated population of nearly two million, the South Wales Board was one of the medium-sized areas in the new structure of British electricity supply. The distinctive economic geography of the region was reflected in a very high proportion of industrial sales (79.3 percent) and a correspondingly low proportion of domestic sales (15.1 percent).[3]
The South Wales Electric Power Company was the largest undertaking in the region with sales to industrial, commercial and domestic customers as well as bulk supplies to many local authorities. In 1946 the company’s sales amounted to 764 million kWh. At nationalisation the company’s generating capacity of 215,000kW represented about 36 percent of the total regional capacity. At the other end of the scale were small local authority systems such as that of the Penarth Urban District which had sales of 3.6 million kWh in 1946 and a generating capacity of 2,200kW.
[2] South Wales Electricity Board, First Annual Report and Accounts, 1948-49 HC344 (London: HMSO, 1949), Appendix 1.
[3] The averages for the area boards in England and Wales were 34.5 percent domestic and 50.2 percent industrial in 1948/49. Calculated from data in Electricity Council, Handbook of Electricity Supply Statistics 1977 edition, pp.64-65.
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