Storage lakes nearly full

Press, 30 November 1978, Page 22

Storage lakes nearly full

PA Wellington New Zealand’s hydro-elec-tric storage lakes were 90 per cent nominally full last week, said the general manager of the Electricity Division of the Ministry of Energy (Mr P. W. Blakely) on Tuesday.

This was a good position to be in at the beginning of the summer. Lake Pukaki had for the first time reached the level [ required to run the Ohau A[ power station, the first | of three new stations being built to complete the Upper Waitaki scheme. The first machine at Ohau A was not due to be com-, missioned until some time during the first half of next year so there should be adequate water available when the station was ready to start generating. The storage level of North Island lakes had been maintained at 66 per cent while the level of South Island lakes had risen 12 per cent to 98 per cent nominally full. Over al! the New Zealand storage level had risen from 82 per cent to 90 per cent nominally full.

Savings last week had been 6.1 per cent better than the guidelines but after allowing for temperature corrections, were slightly down on the 6.6 per cent recorded in the previous week.