Electricity System Profit £3.9m

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30181, 12 July 1963, Page 12

Electricity System Profit £3.9m

(From Our Parliamentary Reporter]

WELLINGTON, July 11. The Shite electricity system made a profit of £3,917,000 in the financial year ended March 31, 1903. The annual report of the Electricity Department, tabled in Parliament today says this surplus was achieved in the first complete year of operation of the new financial plan.

Although given legislative effect in 1957, the new financial arrangements were not fully implemented until October 1, 1961.

They involved increases in the charges for the bulk supply of electricity The report says that by making use of the surplus for capital works, as was the intention of the legislation, an equivalent saving in loan moneys was made with a consequent substantial reduction in annual loan charges Revenue rose from £2O 5 million in 1961-62 to £228 million last year but expenditure was only slightly higher last year, at £18.9 million, than the year before.

The revenue was about £300.000 below the estimate but this was offset by a drop in operating expenses of about £1 million, mostly on

account of reduced coal consumption.

“The mild winter and exceptionally heavy rainfall in the North Island during the year enabled a curtailment of thermal generation anticipated,” says the report. The deprtment paid out nearly half (£10.036.000) of its revenue in interest on loans, allotted £2.6 million to depreciation and spent £1.4 million on loan redemption.