POWER BOARD MEETS

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 150, 20 March 1936, Page 7

POWER BOARD MEETS

Interruptions in Supply A meeting of the Hutt Valley Electric Power Board took place yesterday afternoon at Petone. In his report for- the month ended on February 29, Mr. E. F. Hollands, engineer and general manager, mentioned that several faults liad interrupted the power supply during the period. On February 7 a lightning flash at 8.-10 p.m. bad caused a section of the Petone supply to be cut off for an hour. The heavy southerly gale on February 26 had caused the Normandale supply to be interrupted, and broken wires-on Smith’s Hill had caused the Tawa Flat main supply to be off from 7.30 to 7.35 a-m. Referring to erosion of the riverbank in the Taita Gorge. Mr. Hollands told the meeting that in . three years nine poles had had to be re-elected there. The present line had been forced back 14 chains from its original position. The report contained the following comparison of power sales between April 1; 1935, and February 29, 1930, with those of the corresponding period of 1934-35. The latter are given in parentheses. Domestic lighting, £32,388/13/8 (£31,588/3/1); commercial lighting, £10,625/14/8 (£9497/19/4); public lighting, £3719/18/5 (£3654/10/7-; heating and cooking, £28.959/10/11 (£23,818 10/1) ; water heating, £9788/6/2 (£8931 1/-) ; power, £20,217/15/2 (£17.466 4/-) ; total, discounts, £90’,509/11/l (182,158/16/11). This was an increase of £8650/14/2 on the previous period. The engineer stated that 47 new consumers had been connected, and additions made to 45 existing installations since his previous report. The number of consumers up to March 4 was 12.207; the number of ranges connected, 2057; the number of water heaters connected, 1722; and the connected load in kilowatts, 47,852.