Depicted small hydroelectric power station Dražice (Malá vodní elektrárna Dražice), located on Jizera river in Dražice, has origin in former mill which was rebuilt in the first power station in the end of the 19th century.
The history of Dražice Small Hydroelectric Power Station is connected with Družstevní závody v Dražicích / Dražice Cooperative Factory (ZD, see logo on the mill building), one of the largest and the most succesfull cooperative enterprises in pre-WWII Czechoslovakia (and pre-WWI Austria-Hungary). But first power station here was built even earlier...
Josef Kysela bought a mill on the Jizera River near the village Dražice in 1876, which he reconstructed and expanded it by a bakery in 1891. Instead of water mill wheels, he had two Girard turbines mounted. One powered the mill and the other a dynamo. The assembly, as well as the installation of lamps and wiring, was carried out by František Križík.
Josef Kysela's widow sold a mill, a bakery and adjacent land for 160,000 guldens to the cooperative "Obilní skladište, umelecký válcový mlýn a pekárna v Dražicích nad Jizerou, spol. s r.o." / "Grain Warehouse, an Roller Mill and a Bakery in Dražice nad Jizerou, Ltd." in 1899, which faced grain speculators. At the extraordinary general meeting held in March 1910, the Board of Directors of the cooperative decided to build a hydroelectric power station and changed cooperative name to: “Obilní skladište, umelecké válcové mlýny, pekárna a elektrárna v Dražicích, spol. s r.o." / "Grand warehouse, roller mill, bakery and power station in Dražice, Ltd.". The power station was completed, and grid, transformers and installations were subsequently gradually built in surrounding municipalities.
The Dražice hydroelectric power station supplied by electric energy 69 municipalities with 8111 consumers in 1917 and over 19000 consumers in 1927. In the second half of the 1920s, the Cooperative employed 220 workers and owned 8 hydroelectric power plants on the Jizera river, a steam power plant and a distribution grid, to which 383 municipalities with 24080 consumers were connected. Turnover for the year 1930 was a respectable 750 000 000 Czechoslovak crowns (today about 30 billion CZK). At the time of its biggest boom, the Cooperative supplied by electric energy 29 towns and 460 villages.
The ZD cooperative also owned a grain warehouse, three large mills and other manufacturing and processing businesses, such as a bakery, cider factory, smithy, brick factory in Lysá nad Labem, the Ozon factory in Vinec producing oxygen for industrial purposes, factory for the production of electricity pylons, repair station of farm machinery, Sales and supply cooperative Domovina and waterworks in Benátky. It has also set up a savings and back-up association for its members. The cooperative also participated in the development of the village Dražice (now a part of Benátky nad Jizerou), helped with the repair of the church and built a Research Institute for the use of electricity in agriculture. At that time, this unique enterprise was the pride of Czechoslovak co-operatives, known all over Europe and was visited by a number of foreign delegations. One of its co-founders was the landowner and Agrarian politician Karel Prášek, who became the first chairman and later a long-term CEO of the cooperative.
After the forced sale of distribution grid and the subsequent nationalization of a large part of the Cooperative's assets in the 1950s, the Dražice Cooperative was established, which focused its production on household and sport products. After the collapse of the Communist regime in 1989, the Cooperative was divided into several independent trading companies. One of them is Dražice – strojírna, s.r.o., which took over the production of water heaters. The power station, connected by 22 kV line to the Czech e-grid, was purchased by SP Dražice Ltd., which operates it today after a general re-construction with a new 740 kW Kaplan turbine.