Residents hot at cold water

Press, 14 June 1978, Page 1

Residents hot at cold water

The Municipal Electricity Department saved an estimated $450,000 by switching off water-heating in Christchurch yesterday in a move that angered some consumers.

What annoyed them even more was that the unannounced cuts, through the ripple-control system, were made for financial reasons and not because of a shortage of power. The chief engineer of the M.E.D. (Mr W. G. Johnstone) said that most people were aware when ripple control was working but one irate caller to “The Press” said that this was not so.

He said that he, like thousands of other residents, had been caught unawares by the move. The M.E.D. could at least have had news of the cuts broadcast by local radio stations.

The caller could then have used the wet-back in his fireplace to heat water. To be left without hot water on the coldest day of the year so far and with young children muddied on their way home from school to be taken care of w'as "just not on.” Mr Johnstone said that the situation had been “too variable” for the broad-

casting of information to have been practicable. Ripple control had been used to reduce the peak load. The Electricity Division based its charges for power supplied to local authorities partly on the six highest loads recorded in an authority’s area in a year. The latest half-year period in which three peak loads were being measured would end on June 30; hence the cuts yesterday to keep the tariff down. The use of ripple control did not indicate any likelihood of actual power cuts. A Ministry of Energy spokesman said from Wellington yesterday that power cuts this winter were "remote.” South Island hydroelectric storage lakes were 96 per cent full. The main North Island lakes, Waikaremoana and Taupo, were only I per cent full and the levels of other North Island lakes were low. However, the national level was 73 per cent of capacity. Last winter storage had dropped to 750GWH before cuts had been considered and even then conservation had made cuts unnecessary. Present storage was about 2000GWH.