Request puts council ‘on spot’

Press, 2 September 1981, Page 6

Request puts council ‘on spot’

The Electricity Division of the Ministry of Energy, has asked the Christchurch City Council for its active support in gaining acceptance of a controversial power pylon route through the eastern suburbs. A request for the council to reaffirm the need for a greater security of supply from Bromley puts councillors on the spot, since many are at least lukewarm towards the idea. But Cr Rex Lester, chairman of the council’s public utilities cojrimittee, said yesterday .that it would be unwise to debate the issue before public submissions to the division had been considered by a special sub-com-mittee.- - > j ' . . Cr Lester and . the Municipal Electricity Department’s general manager, (Mr J. H.

Donald), are members of the sub-committee. The division would be asked to get on with its part of the job of compiling information on the submissions so the committee could do its work, Cr Lester said. “We do not want to debate it until all the relevant information is available,” he said. The Ariti-Pylon Action Committee, after a July public meeting, said that overhead power lines and pylons were “totally unacceptable through residential areas from Bromley to Burwood.” The meeting asked the City Council and Waimairi, .County Council to withdraw their support for the pylon proposal. Loan The Minister of Energy (Mr Birch) has turned down

the council’s request for an interest-free, $1 million loan to help meet M.E.D. capital spending caused by the gas works closing. Mr Birch said that additional loans had been supported for Timaru in 1977 and Greymouth in 1980, when similar works closed, but interest-free loans had not been considered. A power supply authority would normally price so that it could fully recoup costs, including major capital works such as the M.E.D.’s $2.25 million worth of extensions, he said. The City Council also enjoyed other advantages. It (had the economy of scale of being a very large supply authority, and it could fund r much of its capital works i programme from revenue.

Also, "the amounts transferred to the council’s general account within recent years would have more than met the cost of this conversion,” Mr Birch said. Peak demand Last week’s southerly storm set two winter peak demands in one day — in spite of water-heating cuts to shed some of the power load — and increased the peak portion of the M.E.D.’s bulk power charge by $407,380. The cost of bulk power is calculated on the average of a year’s six highest half-hour peak demands. But the peak charge this year may still be about $1.6 .million less than estimated if there are no further severe storms. The chargeable

peaks in Christchurch usually fall in June or July. Monitoring The M.E.D. may buy $212,638 worth of monitoring equipment that could allow it to calculate the true cost of supply for consumers such as large industries, and charge them according to special tariff rates. Few M.E.D. tariffs are now directly related to costs because suitable metering equipment has not been available at a reasonable cost. One tariff for big industrial power users — two Christchurch consumers would qualify — would include a penalty rate for demand during winter month, evening peak periods. ■ -" ' ■ t-’ . \ r