The electricity retail company Aurora Energy was formed by the dis-aggregation of the Hydro Electric Commission in Tasmania

Tasmania

Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, on 1 July 1998. This resulted in the division of the formerly government owned department into three companies - Hydro Tasmania

Hydro Tasmania

Hydro Tasmania, known for most of its history as The HEC, is the government owned enterprise which is the predominant electricity generator in the state of Tasmania, Australia...

 which generates

Electricity generation

Electricity generation is the process of generating electric energy from other forms of energy.The fundamental principles of electricity generation were discovered during the 1820s and early 1830s by the British scientist Michael Faraday...

 the power, Transend Networks

Transend Networks

The electrical transmission company Transend Networks Pty Ltd was formed by the disaggregation of the Hydro Electric Commission in Tasmania, Australia, on 1 July 1998...

 which transmits

Electric power transmission

Electric-power transmission is the bulk transfer of electrical energy, from generating power plants to Electrical substations located near demand centers...

 it across the state, and Aurora Energy, the distribution

Electricity distribution

File:Electricity grid simple- North America.svg|thumb|380px|right|Simplified diagram of AC electricity distribution from generation stations to consumers...

 and retail

Electricity retailing

Electricity retailing is the final process in the delivery of electricity from generation to the consumer. The other main processes are transmission and distribution.- Beginnings :...

 arm, which sells and distributes it to customers. This was in anticipation of Tasmania joining the National Electricity Market

National Electricity Market

The National Electricity Market is the name of the Australian wholesale electricity market and the associated synchronous electricity transmission grid....

 (NEM), which opened up the market to competitors.

In September 2004, Aurora secured naming rights to Launceston

Launceston, Tasmania

Launceston is a city in the north of the state of Tasmania, Australia at the junction of the North Esk and South Esk rivers where they become the Tamar River. Launceston is the second largest city in Tasmania after the state capital Hobart...

 Australian rules football

Australian rules football

Australian rules football, officially known as Australian football, also called football, Aussie rules or footy is a sport played between two teams of 22 players on either...

 stadium York Park. The stadium will be known as Aurora Stadium until 2015.

In late 2005 Aurora began trialling Aurora Pay As You Go, pre-paid electricity to selected areas of Adelaide. This system involved the Payguard meter, known as a smart meter

Smart meter

A smart meter is usually an electrical meter that records consumption of electric energy in intervals of an hour or less and communicates that information at least daily back to the utility for monitoring and billing purposes. Smart meters enable two-way communication between the meter and the...

. The official launch of the product, due to the success of the trial, went ahead in May 2007 making Aurora Energy the first electricity retailer to offer the pre-payment option in South Australia. This coincided with the 10 year birthday celebration of Aurora Pay As You Go in the State of Tasmania.

National Broadband Network

Aurora Energy has been selected to construct the National Broadband Network

National Broadband Network

The National Broadband Network is a national wholesale-only, open-access data network under development in Australia. Up to one gigabit per second connections are sold to retail service providers , who then sell Internet access and other services to consumers...

in Tasmania. This will be a fibre to the premises (FTTP/FTTH) network connecting over of the state's 200,000 households, businesses, hospitals and schools. The network is promised to deliver speeds of up to 100 Megabits per second. The Tasmanian rollout is set to begin in July 2009.