The Manitoba Hydro-Electric Board, operating as Manitoba Hydro, is the electric power and natural gas utility in the province of Manitoba, Canada. Founded in 1961, it is a provincial Crown Corporation, governed by the Manitoba Hydro-Electric Board and the Manitoba Hydro Act. Today the company operates 16 interconnected generating stations. It has more than 527,000 electric power customers and more than 263,000 natural gas customers. Since most of the electrical energy is provided by hydroelectric power, the utility has low electricity rates. Stations in Northern Manitoba are connected by a HVDC system, the Nelson River Bipole, to customers in the south. The internal staff are members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 998 while the outside workers are members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 2034.

Manitoba Hydro headquarters in the downtown Winnipeg Manitoba Hydro Place officially opened in 2009.

The first recorded attempt to extract useful work from a Manitoba river was in 1829 at a flour mill (known as Grant's Mill) located on Sturgeon Creek in what is now Winnipeg. This was not successful and the milling equipment was later operated by a windmill.

The first public electric lighting installation in Manitoba was demonstrated at the Davis House hotel on Main Street, Winnipeg, March 12, 1873. In 1880, the Manitoba Electric and Gas Light Company was incorporated to provide public lighting and power, and a year later absorbed the Winnipeg Gas Company. In 1893, the Winnipeg Electric Street Railway Company was formed, and initially purchased power from Manitoba Electric and Gas, but by 1898, it had built its own 1000-horsepower (750 kW) generating plant and purchased Manitoba Electric and Gas.

The first hydroelectric plant in Manitoba operated north of Brandon from 1901 to 1924. Private investors built a 261-foot (80 m) earth-fill dam across the Minnedosa River (now known as the Little Saskatchewan River) about a kilometer from its junction with the Assiniboine River. The plant only operated part of the year, with the load carried in the winter months by steam generators. An 11-kV wood-pole transmission line connected the station with the town of Brandon, Manitoba. The dam washed out in 1948 but remains are still visible. A second plant was built by private investors near Minnedosa in 1912 but low water levels meant that it only operated intermittently. In 1920 the plant was replaced by a diesel station owned by the Manitoba Power Commission. The dam still exists today at Minnedosa Lake.

By 1906, Winnipeg Electric Street Railway had constructed a hydroelectric plant on the Winnipeg River near Pinawa, and seventy miles (110 km) of 60-kV transmission line. This plant operated year-round until 1951, when it was shut down to allow improved water flow to other Winnipeg River stations. Its remains are still preserved as a provincial park.

Since the investor-owned Winnipeg Electric Street Railway was charging twenty cents per kilowatt-hour, the City of Winnipeg founded its own utility in 1906,. Winnipeg city alderman John Wesley Cockburn (January 9, 1856 – November 9, 1924) had privately secured water rights for a development on the river. With these water rights, the City developed a generating station at Pointe du Bois on the Winnipeg River (which was completed in 1911 and which still operates early in the 21st century). In reaction to this, Winnipeg Electric Street Railway dropped prices to ten cents per kilowatt-hour, but the City-owned utility (Winnipeg Hydro) set a price of 3.5 cents per kilowatt-hour which held for many decades.

In 1916, the Province established the Manitoba Power Commission with the object of bringing electric power to communities outside of Winnipeg.