SOUTH ISLAND POWER

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 31, 6 February 1941, Page 6

SOUTH ISLAND POWER

NO PRESENT SHORTAGE

BUT EXTENSIONS DELAYED *

(By Telegraph— Pres9 Association.)

CHRISTCHURCH, February 5

There is not likely to be a serious shortage of power in the South Island, according to official calculations, unless an unusually dry winter is experienced. The use of the new generating units at Waitaki has enabled the storage of sufficient water to be made at the other supply points—Lake Coleridge, Monowai, and Waipori—to meet expected needs. This was explained in an interview by the Chief Electrical Engineer to tlie Public Works Department, Mr. F. T. M. Kissel. He indicated, on the other hand, that the Department was seriously perturbed about delays in the delivery of plant for power supply extensions. These delays might affect the supply position in 1942, but for the coming winter only unusually dry conditions would cause the authorities any great concern, he said. To emphasise the difficulties being met in the supply of plant for new stations and for additions to existing stations, Mr. Kissel said that generators being built for New Zealand in Great Britain had actually been damaged by enemy action while on the shop floors, while other plant ordered some time ago from Sweden was still held up in that country, and there seemed little prospect of having the machinery released.