Gas and Electricity

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28450, 3 December 1957, Page 14

Gas and Electricity

The Canterbury Chamber of Commerce bulletin on the complete gasification of coal has been issued at an appropriate time, because it raises issues that the new Government must consider. In Opposition, the Labour Party showed a negative, if not obstructive, attitude to the co-ordination of the gas and electricity industries. Something better will be expected when Labour has the responsibilities of office. Though the author of the bulletin, Mr P. A. Toynbee, is concerned principally with the technical advances that make gas more attractive, he also draws attention to the usefulness of gas in balancing the load on electric power stations. Hydroelectricity is still the cheapest form of electricity, but it has one serious disadvantage—its high capital cost is related directly to a maximum demand that may last only a few minutes and not to total sales. For most of the day generating capacity is wasted, since electricity cannot be stored. On the other hand gas can be stored at quiet times of the day and week for use at busy times. Obviously the more gas and the less electricity is used at times of peak demand the better. The cost of gas should not be measured against the average retail cost of a unit of electricity, but against what would be an economic price for each unit at times of peak load. If domestic electricity installations could be fitted with special meters switching over to a higher rate when the demand rose householders would economise at that time. This would reduce their demands on supply authorities. They in turn would not draw so heavily at peaks from the State Hydro-electric Department, which would then not have to build so much generating capacity, and electricity would be cheaper. Supply authorities are encouraged, properly, to keep their peaks down by having to pay on peak load and not on total units bought. Unfortunately supply authorities have to sell power at a flat unit rate regardless of when it is used. The only way they have found to reduce

peak demand sales is by switching off water heaters, which is a most useful measure. It does not, however, go far enough, because it does not touch the peak use of ranges and space heaters. What the supply authorities, and their customers as a whole, really need is an increased use of gas at peak periods. Mr Toynbee gives some practical suggestions on how the use of gas could be encouraged. Little can be done, however, until supply authorities realise the advantage they could obtain for their customers by supporting the gas industry. It will not be easy to reverse the trend away from gas, which was given its momentum by the decision of the first Labour Government that gas should not be used in State houses. This decision also interfered with normal gas reticulation. Ironically the city where this bulletin is published is the one where the supply authority, the City Council, has provided the greatest opposition to the co-ordination of the gas and electricity industries and little understanding- of power economics. Some of its spokesmen showed a fundamental misconception of the position when they waited on the Minister in charge of the State Hydro-electric Department (Mr Goosman) to protest against having to pay for electricity at the same rate as smaller authorities. They advanced it as almost a virtue of the Christchurch system that it had particularly high peak loads, so that other districts paid less for each unit though as much for each kilowatt. Whether large authorities should receive some tariff concessions depends on many factors, including national distribution costs, but an excessive peak is not a good reason for a discount, rather the reverse. The Christchurch councillors would do better to consider how the gas industry could be helped to resume its place in a proper balance of power sources. It should be remembered that where prices are competitive gas is a better source of energy for some purposes than electricity.