WATER POWER.

Auckland Star, Volume LII, Issue 95, 22 April 1921, Page 4

WATER POWER.

m DOMINION POSSIBILITIES. (Special to "Star.'") WELLINGTON, this day. One of tue few special articles in the latest official Year Book deals with the development of electric power from New Zealand's sources of water power. A lengtliy schedule of the possible sources iof supply shows that no portion of the .Dominion is far away from a supply, if iit is developed, and that the total horsepower available from all sources reaches the impressive figure of 4,076,000 horse-power. Thus the writer is justified in declaring that there is j practically an unlimited supply. A (considerable number of the sources indicated arc, it is stated, suitable for general industrial development, but the largest ones, being in the unsettled portions of the South Island and near deep water sounds, are particularly suitable for utilisation in connection with electro-chemical or electro-metallurgical industries. Thus there may 'be in the future a source of wealth for New Zealand enterprise at present untapped and almost unthought of."

Compared with the possibilities, the actualities are extremely modest, the amount of power in use in 1920 being 47,983 horse-power. The only provinces using five-figure supplies are: Auckland (with 15,423 horse-power), Canterbury (11.491) and Otago (10;715). The most recent State hydro-electric scheme is that based on the purchase from the Waihi Gold Mining Co. of the Horahora station. The operation by the State for the five months ended March 31. 1920, results in a gross revenue of £5803, or £3933 in excess of working expenses. After allowing for interest on the purchase money of £•212,500, and two per cent, depreciation, there was a net loss of £2122 This scheme will doubtless have a similar history to that of the successful Coleridge scheme, which, under increasing production, litis lowered its running costs, until they are dow n to £6 75 per „ 6 i r -^^° n m ™»"'. compared | with £7.02 for the Horahora scheme In .its present incomplete stage The alio

Horse Thames Taller Power Board *££ r - Te A warn tit it Power Board.. *22! rnrnnndpe Power .Board. 2S £■"':?> r "iwer Board *£x Hamilton Borough 55 Waihi Borough .....'.'.'.'.'.'.'" ™ T »tai _• ;.."; 2 .