Electricorp denies holding back in cuts

Press, 28 December 1988, Page 2

Electricorp denies holding back in cuts

PA Wellington The Electricity Corporation has denied charges that it did not use two generating stations during power cuts on December 14 because of the cost of running them on oil fuels.

Electricorp’s corporate relations manager, Ms Juliet Hensley, said the corporation had not used two stations, Whirinaki and Otahuhu, because it had to have reserve back-up in case of emergencies. She was commenting on claims by an unnamed former senior manager of the former Electricity Department, who criticised the corporation for failing to use the stations during the power cuts. The cuts, which resulted from industrial

action by the Public Service Association, halved the corporation’s production of electricity throughout New Zealand for eight hours.

They affected thousands of households, industries, rest homes and hospitals, and disrupted the work of banks, the stock exchange and foreign exchange dealing. The former Electricity Department worker said some of the problems that hit places like Wellington could have been avoided if the two power stations had been used.

Ms Hensley yesterday expressed annoyance at the unnamed person criticising Electricorp engineers who had done their best to protect the system during a time of unprecedented disruption.

“It was a management decision that was reached after considerable discussion at several meetings about how the national grid was to be managed in that period,” Ms Hensley said.

Problems had hit the generating system on December 7, particularly in Dunedin, when earlier P.S.A. action had reduced the amount of power generated. That experience and the fact that the December 14' cuts represented the biggest disruption ever experienced by the national system convinced Electricorp “that the ' system was at some risk." “It was necessary to have those stations in reserve,” she said.