The Press FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1955. Towards a Single Power System

Press, Volume XCII, Issue 27795, 21 October 1955, Page 12

The Press FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1955. Towards a Single Power System

Both the Minister in charge of the State Hydro-electric Department (Mr Goosman) and the general manager (Mr A. E. Davenport) looked into the more distant future of the electricity supply industry of ' this country when they addressed • the annual conference of the New [Zealand Electrical Supply Authori- , ties’ Association yesterday. That, lin itself, is encouraging, because it suggests that the department, after 10 years of frenzied effort to catch up with the arrears of work left by the war and the greater tasks of post-war expansion, has at last won for itself a breathing-space in which it can look, calmly and calculatingly, at the needs of the future. Neither Mr Goosman nor Mr Davenport implied, of course, that the country’s power troubles are over. For some years, at least, the department will be hard-pressed to meet the growing demand for power in the North Island. But the completion of the Roxburgh station next winter will at least assure the electricity needs of the South Island for some years to come. The anxiety of South Island

consumers for the more distant future must also have been relieved by Mr Goosman's confident declaration of a “ target date ” for the next succeeding station, the even bigger project at Benmore, on the Waitaki river, the construction of which, the Minister said, must be started in time to permit operation by -1965-66 —or earlier if the growth of load exceeds expectations.

Both the Minister and the general manager looked also to the eventual linking of the power systems of the two islands. That prospect has caused a good deal of unnecessary alarm in the South Island; and Mr Goosman and Mr Davenport were abundantly justified in asking South Island supply authorities and their consumers to look at this question from a national rather than an insular and selfish point of view. The simple fact is that it would not be in the national interest to run half the country on high-cost fuelgenerated power (upon which the North Island must increasingly rely) and to allow the cheap water power of the South Island to continue to run to waste. The South Island as well as the North would be bound to suffer the penalties of such a short-sighted policy. The whole country, of course, will need to be vigilant to see that hydro-electric development in the South Island is geared to this future national system of power supply. Neither speaker yesterday was prepared to say whether the Cook Strait link might be early or late. But whenever the two islands are linked it should be possible, by ordinary prudent preparations, to ensure that

any remaining shortage in generating capacity in the North Island is more than covered by a surplus in the richly-endowed south; and from that time onward the South Island and the North Island will speak with a united voice in demanding that their joint power needs be adequately met—that is, if the government of the time shows signs of failing in its responsibility to meet those needs.

The Cook Strait power cable can no longer be regarded as something for the remote future. Developments overseas suggest that it should be practicable within 10 years, perhaps no more than five. While the two islands seemed bound to remain separate electrical entities for an indefinite period, some sort of case could be made for regarding them as separate and distinct economic units. It could be argued fairly persuasively that while the cost of power was rising in the North Island relative to that in the South, industry and population should be persuaded, by differential charges, to go to the South Island where power is relatively plentiful and cheap. In the long run the South Island might not gain very much from such a policy because the cost of power is, after all, a very small item in most industrial cost structures, and is unlikely to outweigh other considerations in deciding where a man or a family shall live. The South Island can, therefore, accept without any qualms Mr Goosman’s plea that the whole electrical undertaking of the country should be regarded, in spite of its temporary division, as “ a “ unit For five years, or perhaps 10 or more, the South Island will have a ; sufficient advantage over the North in its assurance of a regular and ample supply of power—which is much more attractive to industry than any slight saving in power costs. In that period local bodies and public and semi-public organisations interested in the progress of their various districts will have a singular opportunity to reverse the “ drift to the north ”.