HIGHBANK POWER SUPPLY

Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24624, 21 July 1945, Page 5

HIGHBANK POWER SUPPLY

* Interruption During Storm ICE AND DEBRIS BLOCK PENSTOCK Accumulations of ice and snow and debris blown into the irrigation race in the north-west gale of the previous day blocked the penstock of the Highbank power station last Saturday. Because of this uncertain help was given by the new generating unit in the critical power situation arising from the snowstorm. The transmission lines from Waitaki to Timaru and Ashburton were broken in several places by the storm, and for much of the weekend Canterbury had to rely on Lake Coleridge and Highbank for its power. It was in the periods when Highbank had to shut down that power rationing in Christchurch was resorted to. Giving this information to a reporter of “The Press” yesterday, Mr R. G. Mac Gibbon, district electrical engineer to the Public Works Department, said that the conditions were altogether exceptional The wind-blown debris alone or the snow and ice alone might not have caused trouble, but the combination effectively choked the iron grids protecting the intake to the penstock, This meant that insufficient water was passed through to operate the turbine. The icing difficulty was the worst of the troubles, but the engineers at the station solved the problem ingeniously by using concrete-mixing vibrators as agitators working directly on the screens. The actual machinery of the three main generating stations gave no trouble during the storm.