MEETING A POWER SHORTAGE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 10, 13 January 1941, Page 6

MEETING A POWER SHORTAGE

It could hardly have been anticipated by the designers of the great hydro-electric power stations in New Zealand that by. 1941 the demand for power, in the North Island at any rate, would be perilously close to the limit of immediate supply. Yet this is the position set out in an article in "The Post" last. week. The conclusion reached is that power in the North Island is in short supply and that rationing, which was a possibility last winter, is more than a probability during the winter of 1941. The reasons are that the demand, which has been increasing steadily for the last ten years through both extension and expansion in the use of electricity, is still mounting, while the supply from hydro stations has not kept pace with the demand. It is not so long ago that the Mangahao hydro station was able to meet the needs of the Wellington Province; it is now quite unequal to the demands of Wellington City alone, and the Evans Bay steam station is in full swing nearly round the clock. The position is accentuated by the effect of the war. Plans to increase the hydro output from Arapuni and Waikaremoana so that it would have been available this year have been seriously hampered by delays in the delivery of machinery from Sweden and elsewhere in Europe. In time, no doubt, the new developments of water power will catch up with the demand, but until then some form of economy in electricity seems inevitable. It is suggested that an extension of daylight saving to one hour in the summer, with half an hour for the rest of the year, would help substantially to meet the difficulty. The public would probably prefer this to rationing.