M.E.D. Manager Back From Six-Month Tour

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28747, 19 November 1958, Page 16

M.E.D. Manager Back From Six-Month Tour

(From Our Own Reporter )

WELLINGTON, November 18. In the matter of overhead deliver of power. New Zealand has not a great deal to learn from overseas, but there is a great field for development in the more modern underground methods. This is the principal conclusion of Mr G. H. Battcrsby, engineermanager of the Christchurch Municipal Electricity Department, who arrived in Wellington today by the Monowai after a sixmonth business trip to the United States. Britain. Switzerland. Italy and Australia. Mr Battcrsby said that the mam objects of his trip were to study methods of power distribution, charging, accounting, and general operation. He had made regular reports to the department about his findings, and would make others on his return. The trip had been both interesting and instructive. Mr Battcrsby said that In Bri-I tain he found manufacturers of electrical equipment on a wave of prosperity. Orders seemed to be piling up from other countries, and domestic requirements were giving a full schedule.

Mr Battcrsby visited Calder Hall and a new nuclear power station which was still under construction. His impression nf both these undertakings was that the scope and complexity of the work icquired was far above what was needed for previous power undertakings. His general impressions of Britain were of considerable prosperity, which showed itself in extensive road and building construction. The amount of highway development that was going on. said Mr Battcrsby. was quite impressive. He spent some time in the city of Rochester, Nc . York, studying methods of power distribution. He noted that distribution there was about equally divided, between overhead and underground. The high percentage of underground work made the costs of electricity so newhat higher. Rochester, however, was very up to date in all civic amenities. San Francisco and New York were also well worth studying, though the complexity of their installations could be imagined. Around both big cities he was acain impressed by the number nf office buildings going up the amount of arterial roadbuilding. On the way home, he visited the huge Snowy Mountains scheme in Australia, and was a the New Zealander, Sir William Hudson, who is in charge oi it It was an amazing and complex scheme, with two main objects. First, the plan was to pass the river waters back westward through the mountains to irrigate arid country; and second, tne result would eventually be i nnn nnn nCr , at :° n ° f mOre ‘han 3.090.000 kilowatts of electric power.