COAL FOR POWER PLANTS

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 111, 4 February 1941, Page 6

COAL FOR POWER PLANTS

Complaint Of Shortage ELECTRICITY MAY BE RESTRICTED (Bv Telegraph—Press Association.) AUCKLAND, February 3. Restrictions on the use of electricity in the North Island in the next few months are probable should it be found impossible to get sufficient coal for coal-consum-jug power plants, which will be required to operate at full pressure to assist in maintaining the supply right through next winter. The output at Arapuni will be insufficient, and it was stated two months ago by Mr. R. H. Bartley, general manager of the Auckland Elect:ic Power Board, that plants running on coal would have to make up the' deficiency. The subject was brought up at a meeting of the Auckland Electric Power Board today. The chairman, Mr S J. Harbutt, said supplies were fast falling. Men were not working a 40-hour week, and there was not the same output for each man as formerly. The board had communicated with the Power Boards’ Association, which had got in touch with, all its members, a deputation of whom would meet the Minister of Mines, Mr. Webb, next Tuesday or Wednesday. “We want to make it perfectly clear that this is not a question of _ the Auckland board’s shortage only; it is the whole of the North Island supply,’ added Mr. Harbutt. The Auckland board was doing all that was possible, and Mr. Bartley had been asked to make inquiries about the supply of coal from the South Island. “If no satisfaction is received after the meeting next week, we will have to make a public statement and put ourselves on side with our consumers. We are 35,000 tons short on our dumps, and it is that factor we want to put right,” said Mr. Bartley, who explained that the deficiency would represent the amount of the restriction imposed.