Kilowatt Cost ‘Not Measure’

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30535, 2 September 1964, Page 3

Kilowatt Cost ‘Not Measure’

(From Our Parliamentary Reporter) WELLINGTON, Sept. 1. The cost a unit of electricity generated as a result of the Tongariro power scheme was .56d a kilowatt hour, not .5d as mentioned in a leading article in “The Press,” said the Minister of Electricity (Mr Shand) in Parliament today.

Mr M. A Connelly (Opp., Riccarton) said the article also quoted the capital cost of the scheme as £125 a kilowatt Would Mr Shand state the lowest cost of power from steam stations in New Zealand, and whether it was possible to adopt larger and more modern methods than those used at Meremere for producing electric power? Mr Shand replied that the cost of . a kilowatt of generating capacity added was not a suitable measure of the economics of the Tongariro project as nearly a third of the units to be generated would be produced from existing stations on the Waikato river. “The lowest cost of generating power from steam stations in New Zealand has

been attained at Meremere with 30,000 kilowatt generators,” Said Mr Shand. The cost was approximately 0.9 d a unit. “The only coalfield where supplies of coal capable of being cheaply won and adequate for the lifetime of about 30 years of a steam station equivalent to the Tongariro project is in the Buller province. “Power from such a station delivered to the North Island with the necessary complementary peak capacity is estimated to cost about 0.735 d a unit. “Generation by this means of an energy output equivalent to Tongariro would cost from £900,000 to £1,250,000 a year more than the annual cost of Tongariro power," he said.