The roots of the public supply and transportation system can also be traced back a long way in Wiesbaden. The first evidence of public water supply dates back to the beginning of the 16th century; centralized water supply was introduced in 1870. Pitch rings (around 1550) and oil lanterns (around 1750) were forerunners of the later gas (1847) and electric street lighting (since 1898).

As in other cities, private companies took over the supply of gas, electricity and transportation until the prospect of secure profits on the one hand and better consideration of social aspects on the other gradually prompted the city to become involved in its own entrepreneurial activities in the form of a kind of in-house company. In 1873 the gasworks became municipal, in 1906 the power station, and in the same year the city built its first streetcar line. In 1929, it took over most of the Süddeutsche Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft's streetcar network and at the same time became the first major city in the world to switch to bus services.

The increasing indebtedness of German cities during the economic crises of the 1920s hit Wiesbaden particularly hard. The only way to raise capital was to convert the municipal utilities into a public limited company, as this was the only way to provide the money market, especially the coveted foreign money, with the necessary security.

On May 6, 1930, the "Wasser-, Elektrizitäts- und Gaswerke Wiesbaden Aktiengesellschaft" (WEGWAG) was founded with a share capital of RM 20 million as a 100% municipally owned company. The transport companies, which initially continued to operate as a municipal enterprise, were incorporated into WEGWAG on April 28, 1942 with a view to concentrating the city's economic assets. The company now traded as "Stadtwerke Wiesbaden Aktiengesellschaft", but in 1970 adopted a phonetic abbreviation of the letters S and W from "Stadt-Werke", "ESWE".

Since the end of the 1970s, the company's geographical area of responsibility has expanded significantly. Today, it manages the long-distance water supply in the Rheingau-Taunus district and the western Main-Taunus district. Since 1932, the neighboring cities of Mainz and Wiesbaden have operated a joint power plant on the Ingelheimer Aue with Kraftwerke Mainz-Wiesbaden AG, which is able to cover the majority of the electricity requirements of both cities.

The three companies have also been united since 1974 in the "Versorgungs- und Verkehrsverbund Mainz-Wiesbaden GmbH" with the aim of working even more closely together in the area of the two state capitals in matters of supply and transportation. The traditional Blaue Kurautobusse Wiesbaden Tours International GmbH (founded in 1913) was also an ESWE subsidiary, as was the "ESWE-Institut für Wasserforschung und Wassertechnologie GmbH", which carries out research in the fields of water extraction, water analysis and water protection.

In 2000, the holding company ESWE Versorgungs AG was founded, in which the state capital of Wiesbaden holds a 100 % stake. Subsequently, the transportation division was spun off into a new company "ESWE Verkehrsgesellschaft mbH". In addition, all shareholdings not related to the supply business areas were transferred to the holding company and the transport company. A partial privatization followed in 2001, and since then Thüga AG has held 49.5 % of the shares in ESWE Versorgungs AG. In the same year, the management of the waste disposal operations of the state capital of Wiesbaden (ELW) ended. On 01.01.2012, the water supply was spun off to the new municipal enterprise of the city of Wiesbaden.