Ontario Power Generation

SOUTH FALLS GENERATING STATION

PLANT GROUP: Small Hydro Division
DRAINAGE BASIN: Lake Huron
RIVER: Muskoka
NEAREST POPULATION CENTRE: Bracebridge
IN SERVICE DATE:
UNIT 1 (OLD) 1907 (Dismantled 1925)
UNIT 1 (New), August 25, 1916
UNIT 2 January 22, 1925
UNIT 3 January 26, 1925
ACQUIRED BY HYDRO-ELECTRIC POWER COMMISSION OF ONTARIO: November 1, 1915
FROM: Municipality Of Gravenhurst
Asset Transferred to Ontario Power Generation: April 1, 1999
NUMBER OF UNITS: 2
CONTROL: Northbury

HISTORICAL NOTE:
In October 1906, a town by-law was passed. It voted $45,000 for the construction of a power plant at South Falls. Prior to that date, Gravenhurst ratepayers approved a by-law in August 1906 voting $48,000 for a waterworks system and $60,000 for a power station at Trethewey Falls.

Bids were to be received in September for the plant and lines necessary to link it with Gravenhurst. The town by-law of December 1906, however, superseded the previous one in August. How the change of locale came about is difficult to ascertain. Certainly, South Falls provided a better site, one more accessible to Gravenhurst and probably cheaper to develop.

However, South Falls had been regarded as Bracebridge property until then. Bracebridge had applied to the Hydro-Electric Power Commission in early 1906 for a lease of South Falls to expand its own power plant but it had not pressed its application. Gravenhurst took advantage of this lack of interest on Bracebridge's part to present a serious proposal to the Ontario Government for the South Falls site. When Gravenhurst pressed its application, Bracebridge suddenly realized it might lose out and renewed its own application. The Commission's solution to this dilemma was to recommend to the Ontario Government that power be developed at the site for the benefit of both municipalities. Bracebridge was unwilling to participate in this scheme and instead built its own secondary station north of the town at Wilson.

During 1907, construction of the plant and transmission lines proceeded quickly and the station was officially opened in October 7, 1907. The involvement of the town in electric power production was soon to end though increased demands on the South Falls station made the problem of capital expenditures a persistent one. The South Falls site had the potential to generate power for an area much larger than Gravenhurst. It was really beyond the needs and capabilities of the town. In 1915, the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario offered to buy the South Falls station from the town and to begin work at once to modernize and enlarge it.

It was not until the full-scale reconstruction of the Muskoka system took place in 1924-1925 that the last links between the Hydro system and the old town system were completely broken.

Up to the end of the year 1923 the various systems had been operated as separate units but the complications involved in keeping accurate cost of power transferred from one system to the other introduced so many difficulties as to practically destroy the benefits obtained by the combined operation. This condition together with the fact that additional power was urgently needed both in the Eugenia and Severn districts led the Commission to depart from its original policy of operating each system as a separate unit and at a meeting held January 31, 1924, the amalgamation of the Severn, Eugenia, Wasdells and Muskoka systems was authorized and later ratified by legislation under an amendment to the Power Corporation Act.