Stations For Auckland

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30981, 10 February 1966, Page 1

Stations For Auckland

(from Our Own Reporter! WELLINGTON, Feb. 9. Power engineers in the Electricity Department are planning now for the construction of two, and possibly three, nuclear power stations in the Auckland province within the next 20 years.

The first will probably be built on a site beside the Kaipara Harbour and the second and third stations in South Auckland and about the Auckland city area.

Mr Shand said his department was thinking in terms of a second station being constructed south of Auckland initially to supply both the Hamilton and Auckland districts and “in a longer term still” for the construction of a major generating station, nuclear or thermal, in the middle of Auckland. Potential sites which have been mentioned for the Auckland and south Auckland nuclear stations include a 160-acre area owned by the department at Otara and areas yet to be investigated, about the Hauraki gulf. It is considered unlikely that a station on the Otara site would be used to supply the Hamilton area and the alternative for supply to the Auckland city could be a site closer to the city.

The Electricity Department I plans to construct an oilI fuelled gas turbine station on I the Otara site within the next 115 months. It has ordered i four 50 megawatt gas turbine I sets, the first of which is ' required for service at Otara I by May next year. The Department wants the other three sets for service by the winter of 1968, and a decision on the siting of them depends on the Government's decision on the utilisation of Kapuni natural gas. Two of the sets could be installed at Otara. The department it is said, plans ultimately to have five sets at the Otara site. They could be run on either gas from Kapuni or oil from the Marsden Point refinery—a lighter oil than is to be used at the Marsden Point oil-fired station. The Otara station will supply the Auckland metropoliton and south Aucklarw metropolitan areas.