TWENTY-FIVE YEARS

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 146, 17 December 1913, Page 3

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS

ELECTRIC LIGHT IN THE CITY HOW WELLINGTON PIONEERED THE WAY. (By "Autos.") So quickly do things progress and so lightly do people adapt themselves to the latest developments of science that it is hard to realise that the City of Wellington has now for a quarter of a century been living in the light of electricity. Yet it is twenty-five years ago since the installation of electric light in the main streets was commenced — a light that may be said never afterwards to have failed. There have been no civic celebrations of the silver wedding of the city and electricity — the City Fathers are not sentimental over these memories of bygone days— few, indeed, probably know of the anniversary, and fewer, perhaps, cared. FIRST ,IN THE SOUTHERN HEMI1 SPHERE. But there is a story in the twenty-five years of electricity in _ Wellington, if only for the fact that this city was probably the first m the Southern Hemisphere so to light its streets — almost certainly the first in the British Empire outside the Mother Country. It is little more than thirty years ago since the inventions of Edison and his contemporaries first 'made electric light possible for practical illumination, and it was many years later bpfore its use became at all common. Certainly in 1888, when Wellington first installed the light on its streets, it was one of those newfangled things abhorred by most of the rest of a conservative world. A HYDRO-ELECTRIC STATION OF • THE PAST. It was on the 7th August, 1888, that the Wellington City Council, acting under the powers granted by the Municipal Corporations Act signed a contradfc with the New Zealand representatives of the Gulcher Electric Light Company for the installation of 600 lamps and electric power plant for street lighting. Some experience had already been gained by the successful illumination of the Kaiapoi Woollen Mills by electricity, and further experiments carried out in Featherston-street confirmed the council in its decision. The Kiapoi plant was steam-driven, but strangely enough in view of later days the Wellington City Council elected to utilise its watersupply for the generation of electricity. Thus twenty years before the- Lake Coleridge scheme was seriously considered, Wellington already had its hydro-electric station. In its Wainui and Karori reservoirs the authorities in 1888 thought they had an ample source' of water power ; they did not think of a Greater Wellington calling for two new dams of vastly increased dimensions and a new water main from Wainui. RUN FROM THE CITY MAINS Thus the experts calculated they had a perennial source of power from Polhill Gully and Wainui ; their estimates were 108 h.-p. from Polhill Gully, and 200 h.-p. from Wainui. Of course, the idea was not to generate the electricity on the spot as in all modern hydfo-electrio schemes and conduct the current from the district power station to the city, but rather to conduct the water first to the city 'and then use it there to generate electricity. The scheme progressed. So primitive were the ideas of electricity then that for a paltry 500 twenty candle-power incandescent lights it was deemed necessary to establish two generating stations. One was in Marinersstreet in the building at present occupied by Hall's Turkish Baths ; the other was in Panama-street, where SussexChambers now stand. Each station contained two 30 h.-p. Vortex turbines driving generators by belt and pulley. So in 1888 when Wellington was first lit by electricity the total power needed was 120 h.-p. instead of nearly twenty times that to-day, with the Parsons steam turbine and the rest of "the Harris-street plant. THE HUMMING BEE. Electricity was more than a nine-day*' wonder then. Wellington was a fairly quiet place, and electricity in 1888 waa not quiet. The transformers, for instance, hummed and buzzed like a tremendous swarm of bees. So bad was the noise that one night tho boarders in the Duke 6f Edinburgh Hotel came round in a deputation to the authorities to complain that they could not sleep on account of the electricity, as they put it Mr. George Lauchlan, the City Electric Lighting Superintendent, who has been connected with the electric lighting of the city since the very start, and to whom the writer is indebted for this story, declares that it was possible to hear the obnoxious transformer at the Duke of Edinburgh corner as far away as the Panama-street station. Then the generators were noisy also, and from the outlet-pipes the waste water f'om the turbines rusheel in a foaming cascade into the harbour, then much nearer the heart of the city than it is to-day. In spite of its crudeness, the installation generally worked well, and it was not from any inherent defect that it had 7 to givo place to other methods. A LUCKY ACCIDENT. Not long after the opening with, the two stations, each supplying their own lighting area, Mr. Lauchlan, then a youth iii his 'teens, while in charge of p the Manners-street station, by a lucky misadventure solved a problem which electrical engineers all over the world had been trying to solve for years, inadvertently one morning, while testing the connections by a special switch coupling up the two stations, he forgot to throw the switch out, and the two plants began for the first time on recoid to run in parallel together. This was twenty-three years ago. Young Lauchlan, thinking he had done something dreadful, telephoned to the superintendent, Mr. H. S. Cederholm, to come at once and see what could be done. Mr. Cederholm arrived, and Lauchlan stood waiting in fear and trembling of the consequence* to know his fate. Instead of a seveie reprimand, and possibly something worse, the superintendent clapped the youthful electrician on the back and congratulated him on a notable achievement in getting the plants to run in parallel. Particulais were sent ' Home of the feat, and parallel running has been general ever since. THE DISADVANTAGES OF WATER. The hydro-electric system did not last long. The plants used an immense amount of water and in dry summers had to be closed down. Tho people of Wellington promenaded then by the light ol the moon or the stars or no light at all, just as they did in the early days. Afterwards* one station waa closed down altogether, leaving the other to carry on the illumination of the Wellington of those times. Even then water Used to sink alarmingly in the reservoirs in the dry 'weather. When fires broke out the supply was cut off altogether and it was nearly always considered necessary to shut down the plant at midnight. The water had to be turned off gradually to avoid bursting the mains by back pressure, but the regulation that fifteen minutes should be taken for the operation was sometimes broken by the engineers, who had long hours and were anxious to get away early after an all-night vigil in the

station. So what with one thing and another it was clear in the early 'nineties that some other mode of generating electricity would have to be adopted. PRIVATE LIGHTING. Up to this time, of course, electricity had been used only for street-lighting, but an agitation was now started to introduce the electric light into the home and the shop and the office. The New Zealand Electrical Syndicate after a strenuous effort obtained Parliamentary powers and commenced an active campaign to enduce the ratepayers to permit the introduction of private electric lighting. The opposition was equally strong, and old Wellingtomana *will j-e member the exciting evening in the old theatre Royal, when a crowded meeting of ratepayers heard the question debated by the leading exponents on either side. Ihe opposition was led by the late Mr. George Fisher and Mr. T. K. Macdonald, two ot the ablest public men in the city at the time, and a, strong case they made out in their addresses against handing over tile monopoly to a private company. Mr. de Castro, a London barrister, put the case for the syndicate, and Ins dramatic action on the stage proved _ extremely effective. Though the chairman ruled otherwise, the meeting was in favour of the proposal, and as a result electric light was extended to private consumers in Wellington. THE HARRIS-STREET STATION. This was in 1891. Two years latfir" the Harris-street electric lighting station was commenced, Mr. T Carmichael being the builder. The firsi, plant consisted of Davey Paxman engines and dynamos— four of 75 k.w. and one. of 25 k.w. The last of these old engines, with their rope-drive to the dynamo, waa sold a few years ago. Tho demand for electricity rapidly increased and E oon the plant proved inadequate, lhe price at that time was Is a unit, with Id discount, bo that since then it has been reduced by half. A* charge was also made in those days for meters and in one way or another, with lamps costing several shillings apiece, elecirn y -, V s of th<3 nature of a luxury. bhll jt became popular, and the extenScol?rnS c ol ?rn , the £ lant ul "g e nfc. A Brush set of 150 h.p. was next installed, the plant having been purchased second-hand. a long while it refused to run, but eventually was got into working order. As tho demand still furthei increased another Brush plant of 150 h.p., still in the station, and known as " the cotfpe pot, ' wa& erected, and after that again two sets ot three-crank tandem-compound engines, and later still two sets of triple expansion engines, all with Westinghouse dynamos. Finally there came the Curtis vertical turbine, so that when ,the City Council came to take over the station it contained about as miscellaneous a collection of plant as could be found anywhere in the world. THE PARSONS TURBINE. The Bystem was municipalised in 1&07, when the corporation effected a purchase from the syndicate. Almost immediately after that metallic filament lamps came into vogue, using about half the current per candle-power as compared with "the old carbon lamps. With the old plant acquired" from the syndicate the corporation were faced with a serious loss -at first owing to the reduction in the demand for current. The installation of tho Parsons turbine, however, and improvements in tho shape of larger boilers, set close to the turbine, considerably reduced the first cost of generating electricity, and with the wider use of current placed .the municipal system on the firm financial basis whereon it stands today. Wellington is the first city in New Zealand in respect of the us© of electricity for lighting. The number of consumers at the ond of last finahcial year, 31st March, 1913, was v 7884, , and by the latest returns is 8767. Auckland, *he next on tho list, ' has only about 2500 consumers, and one has to go over to the great cities of Australia to find figures exceeding those of Wellington. Certainly there are few' cities in the world ol the size and population of Wellington which can show such results, lhe future is promising. A new Parsons turbo-genevator will be installed during the coming year and should effect a- further reduction in the cost of production. Ultimately, of course, it is highly probable that Wellington will be lit by electricity generated by_ water-power, as it was in the beginning, but the hydroelectric plant will be a hundred ' times more powerful than it was then. The story of Wellington's electricity from water-power to water-power will by that time, perhaps, be worth the retelling at greater length than in this brief sketch.