POWER STORAGE IMPROVES

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27500, 6 November 1954, Page 2

POWER STORAGE IMPROVES

LAKE REPLENISHMENT PROSPECTS EFFECTS OF LATE THAW Probably because of a slight thaw in the back country, storage, in the South Island for generation of electricity has been improving slightly during the last few days. On Tuesday there were 11,140,000 units in storage, on Wednesday morning 11,380,000 units, on Thursday morning 11,640,000 units and yesterday morning 11,990,000 units “The unfortunate part of it is that we still have got a long way to go to put back into storage all the units we have taken out of it,” said the district engineer of the State Hydroelectric Department, Mr W. H. Gregory, yesterday afternoon. Last year between April 1 and October 31 65,900,000 units had been taken out of storage and 608,000,000 units had been generated from river flow, whereas this year in the same period 190,380,000 units had been drawn from storage and they had been able to generate only 486,000,000 units from river flow. “These figures go to show that we are well down on storage,” said Mr Gregory. In 1948 82,000,000 units had been replaced in storage, in 1949 93,000,000, 1950 110,000,000, 1951 38,000,000, 1952 145,000,000, and in 1953 150,000,000. This year, with maximum storage at 210,000,000 units, about 200,000,000 had been used. “These figures indicate that in the last five years we have never been able to put back such a large quantity of units in the limited time available,” said Mr Gregory. Pit is of course possible that something could occur like the big lift we had in 1949 which could ca?ry us through, but we are going to have a big job to get back the storage in the time left.” Mr Gregory that there was usually a 22 weeks’ replacement period when the thaw set in in September until some time 'in February. Last year the thaw did not start until the beginning of December anti the draw on storage began in the 'first week in February this year. It was possible that the same thing could happen again. In the Municipal Electricity Department’s district, consumption was 16.9 per cent, above allocation in the 24 hours up to 9 a.m. yesterday. On the average the district has been 13.4 per cent, about its allocation so far this week. A circular to members of the Canterbury Manufacturers’ Association reports that last week manufacturers saved'2s per cent, of their quota of power. This result was 3 per cent, better than in the previous week. “This is most satisfactory and in the main has been brought about by some members using stand-by plants for longer periods, says the circular.