Named after the power station built by The Hongkong Electric Company in 1915, Electric Road, then a dirt road track, was the only thoroughfare that directly linked Causeway Bay and North Point. When it was built, the power station, on a site now adjacent to Tin Chong (Electricity Factory) Street at the eastern end of Electric Road, was one of only two buildings in the area. The other was the Yacht Club. It was Hongkong Electric's second major plant, and was built to cope with the increasing demand for electricity. The first one was located on Star Street, Admiralty, in 1889, the year the company was founded, and had only enough power to supply 50 arc lamps and to pump water up to houses on The Peak.
The growth of the Hong Kong Electric Company played a significant role in promoting lifestyle changes brought about by electricity. The company's original objective was to supply the territory with electric lights. It com0pleted its first project, the illumination of the roads of Victoria (now Central), by installing 50 electric lamps in 1890. More were required when the Victoria praya reclamation was completed in 1901. This, and the introduction of innovations like lifts as buildings became taller (the first was installed in 1902) and trams (which first ran in the same year), prompted Hongkong Electric to build its more powerful, second station, on Electric Road.
The availability of electricity saw the Telephone Company set up in the early '20s; the first refrigerator was sold in 1920, and the first traffic lights introduced in 1922. The first public illuminations, in which Hongkong Electric powered an arrangement of 3,000 lights in Statue Square, were held on June 28, 1919, the day the Treaty of Versailles, officially ending World War I, was signed.
Domestic use of electricity was slow to catch on, despite vigorous promotion by Hongkong Electric, which set up showrooms for the appliances available, such as lamps and electric fires. They were mainly used by the well-off, particularly expatriates. It wasn't until the arrival of Shanghainese businessmen and industrialists, who fled to Hong Kong when the communists seized power on the mainland in 1949, that Chinese attitudes towards the use of electrical devices began to change.
By the '50s, air-conditioners were spreading to homes, cinemas and restaurants. Stimulated by the disappearance of local amahs, who began to take better-paid jobs in factories, domestic appliances - the most popular of which was the Japanese rice cooker - became popular. Television took off during the '60s, and TV sets, quickly followed by record players, became essential, even among the traditionally hard-working Chinese. Sales of the latest gadgets were assisted by the Labour Department's endless promotions aimed at persuading people that leisure was important. Floodlit football matches and racing meetings also helped to change the population's social habits.
Hongkong Electric's North Point power station was extended to cope with the new demands, and the surrounding area changed with it. Until the '30s, trams from Causeway Bay to Shau Ki Wan ran past the power station. When the government moved King's Road further inland, Hongkong Electric met part of the cost of moving the tramlines with it, giving itself more space. In 1952, the power station switched from coal to oil, and oil companies built storage tanks adjacent to it. Although the oil company premises are no more, their sites are still indicated by Oil Street and Shell Street.