Buller Coal For Power

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31058, 13 May 1966, Page 1

Buller Coal For Power

fFrom Our Own Reporter) WELLINGTON May 12. A North Island* based power station fired with Buller coal may be preferred to the laying of another Cook Strait power cable as a method of avoiding power shortages.

Power planning engineers believe that developmental costs for the proposed Wanganui river dam would be almost prohibitive, and that the expense of laying another power transmission complex across Cook Strait might provoke opposition.

An accurate costing of several alternative means of providing power is being worked out. and the planners’ report will be before the power planning committee in about a month.

If the coal-burning station is accepted, it is likely that the Maryburn and Pukaki developments will be deferred. At present, they are expected to be producing power by April, 1972. The general manager of the Electricity Department (Mr E. B. Mackenzie) said recently that the Wanganui river dam proposals, although not yet complete, indicated that the cost of developing this as a power source would be at least £7O million. The chief engineer of the department (Mr P. W. Blakelev) confirmed today that this figure was close to being prohibitive.

Other sources suggest that the initial low cost of South Island electricity would also approach the borderline when transmission losses and the costs of the overland and Cook Strait lines were added.

Mr Blakeley said tonight that a single high dam on the Wanganui river would produce 2000 million units, compared with 1600 million units from two low dams.

A steam station using Buller coal would cost initially about £45 million, and would produce 2800 million units. The Pukaki hydro-electric station, costing £25 million, would produce 1000 million units.

The ultimate cost of the rival units, however, could tell a different story. A hydroelectric station had high capital cost, but ran very cheaply.

A coal-fired station could be built at lower cost—but the

coal still had to be mined, delivered to a wharf, loaded on a ship, unloaded, and fed to the furnaces.

Mr Blakeley believes that final costs can work out in favour of steam. It is expected that they would be less than the 0.9 d a unit which is the cost at Meremere.

The present unit cost at hydro-electric undertakings averages between 0.4 d and o.sd—but the estimated unit cost from the Wanganui undertaking would be much higher.

The low unit cost of South Island power would have to be adjusted to pay also (for the North Island consumer) the price of the Cook Strait cable. This is believed to have been about £lB.B million.