Electricity The Key To City’s Growth

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31088, 17 June 1966, Page 23 (Supplement)

Electricity The Key To City’s Growth

If the city once lagged behind private enterprise in supplying electricity, its phenomenal growth could not have taken place without it. Electric power has been the key to the industrial and domestic expansion of Christchurch, and since 1903, the City Council, through its Municipal Electricity Department, has kept pace with an appetite that has become giant-sized. The city was generating its own power long before the State came on the scene with the opening of Lake Coleridge hydro-electric station in 1914. Then, there were 1623 power consumers in the city area, served by 21 miles of line. Today, the M.E.D. has more than 75,000 consumers, and upwards of 2000 miles of line.

Perhaps another way of showing the growth of the system is through the consumption of electricity. In 1915, the city supplied 1.3 m units. Today, that figure is in excess of 700 m units a year. In the same period, the maximum demand has risen from 970 kw to 170,000 kw.

Kerosene street lamps had been replaced by gas when the City Council, in 1888 decided to examine the possibility of lighting the town by electricity, and though tenders were called on this and other occasions, 15 years were to pass before gas was superseded.

An English company proposed a combined system of arc and incandescent lamps, and Professor Bickerton suggested that electricity could be generated from the waters of the Avon. While the council was arguing about various schemes and the renewing of the Gas Company’s contract, several private firms installed their own power plants, and by the turn of the century, among those so equipped were Wardell Brothers, Smith and Smith's saw-mill, and Turnbull and Jones, Ltd. In 1898, the council set up a scheme of works committee, charged, among other jobs, with establishing a power supply for public and private use. Mr A. Dudley Dobson reported on the use of the Waimakariri for generating. Although an empowering bill to enable the Waimakariri scheme to proceed was passed in 1902, another decision had been taken by the council which was to prove decisive. In August, 1900, the council decided to establish a refuse destructor, and two years later, adopted a report from Mr W. G. T. Goodman, of Dunedin, which recommended the use of steam from the destructor to generate power.

His proposals provided for the installation of two 160 h.p. steam engines, coupled to two lOOkw directcurrent generators, a 900hour storage battery and other equipment A Sydney firm won the installation contract at a price of £4870.

Older citizens will remember the destructor and its adjacent power-house, which stood approximately on the site of the new car-p;.rk building at the corner of Gloucester and Manchester streets.

Mr Lawrence Birks, of Sydney, was appointed the council’s first electrical engineer. The council eventually took over the plant on July 24, 1903, and the following day, supplied power to its first private consumer, the Star Cycle Company, in Colombo street A month later, there were nine private consumers, including the Clarendon and Zetland hotels.

At this time, the city’s electricity department took over the operation of the destructor and continued to perform this function until its use was discontinued in April, 1938.

In 1905, a third generating set was put into operation, and as the Christchurch International Exhibition of 1906-07 was expected to add greatly to the demand for power, a fourth unit, of 200 h.p., was added. It soon became apparent that more was needed to meet the growing power consumption. Reports were obtained on steam, producer gas and hydro-electric generation. The Waimakariri scheme was revived, in spite of continuing opposition from the old Selwyn County Council, the Wai-makariri-Ashley River Board and other critics. Two more steam units had been added to the plant by 1909, when Mr F. T. M. Kissel, then engineer to the Selwyn County Council, was asked to report on the hydroelectric possibilities of Lake Coleridge. His recommendations were backed up by Mr F. W. Marchant, of Timaru,

The council sought an

amendment to its empowering act to enable it to borrow enough to pay for the Coleridge plant, but the Government stepped in and told the council that it would develop the scheme. By October, 1910, the Government had started work at Coleridge and the plant was first operated in 1914. As the council could not get supply by the promised date, May 1,1914, and the Christchurch Tramway Board’s steam plant (near what is now the bus depot at Waltham) provided a temporary supply until December 8, when Coleridge “came on.”

At first, the Coleridge supply was intermittent, but continuous supply was given from April 1, 1915, and from that date, the council’s steam plant was used only for emergency and peak power needs. Today, any one of the main M.E.D. substations handles more power than Coleridge’s 34,500 kw. The Waimakariri scheme was revived in 1922, when it was becoming apparent that the time was fast approaching when Coleridge would not be able to meet the demand. The American firm of Charles B. Hawley and Company recommended establishment of a 22,500 kw station on the river.

The scheme provided for a 150 ft dam at Otarama. Hydrological data was collected, and when the city again sought power to borrow £900,000, the Government undertook to supply the city “at Waimakariri rates.”

From 1920 to 1946, the city took over supply to many areas outside its boundaries. These included the boroughs of Spreydon and Woolston (1921), parts of Waimairi and Heathcote counties in 1923 and Halswell county in 1934. Sumner borough’s demise from April 1, 1945 brought this area into the city system and the big one came on April 1, 1946, when the city took over the supply of power to the whole of Waimairi County and its 3599 consumers.