Last Benmore Unit Ready For Tests

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31049, 3 May 1966, Page 18

Last Benmore Unit Ready For Tests

(New Zealand Press Association) OAMARU, May 2. The last of the six 90,000 k.w. generators at the 546,000 k.w. Benmore hydro-electric scheme will enter service toward the end of this month.

The unit—the No. s—will be test run on Thursday. Afterwards two to three weeks will be used for efficiency tests and trials. “There will be no pomp and ceremony with cutting in the unit,” a Ministry of Works spokesman said yesterday. “The unit should be in production by the end of this month.” The cutting in of this unit will virtually mark an end to the construction of the huge station which began in 1957. The station has made possible the transfer of power from the South Island to the North Island by undersea cable. The project has been completed with a marked absence of industrial disputes. The design challenged hydro workers by calling for new construction methods to form an earth dam with a concrete spillway. The original design was for an output of 10,000 k.w. a unit. Another major change in the original plan was the construction of pre-stressed concrete penstocks, 17ft 6in in diameter and 550 ft long, in place of heavy steel plate penstocks. It was announced at the

time that pre-stressed penstocks had been built in sizes up to or greater than would be needed at Benmore, but as far as was known the combination of size and pressures involved was unique.