POWER SHORTAGE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 31, 6 February 1941, Page 10

POWER SHORTAGE

HYDRO AND COAL

SERIOUS THIS WINTER

DAYLIGHT SAVING AND RATIONING

The difficulties ahead in the maintenance of full electric power in the northern part of the North Island were stated bluntly by members of the Auckland Power Board, as reported in a Press Association message this week. It is not to be thought that those difficulties are for Auckland alone, for every part of the North Island will be seriously affected unless power supply and demand can be made to balance. Not only is hydro power below demand, but stocks of coal are not building up to meet the heavy winter needs. Power supply authorities are well aware of the seriousness of the position; individual consumers do not yet realise how it may affect them, in city, town, and country alike. An extension of daylight saving would assist materially in meeting the position. The general reaction when a probable power shortage is mentioned is: "I thought that when the three big hydro stations were linked . there would be any amount of power." That was so, but demand has climbed until, in full summer, the hydro stations cannot meet it. Plans for a great increase in generating capacity at both Arapuni and Waikaremoana before the winter of 1941 have been set back many months by war conditions, and so to phenomenal increase in demand has been added this war disruption of development. COAL SHORT, TOO. During these summer months of comparatively low demand both the King's Wharf steam station at Auckland and the Evans Bay steam station are running practically continuously, though the output of power required from mem for feeding to the Government lines varies from day to day. The Auckland station is much larger than Evans Bay and also needs larger proportionate stocks of soft coal than of southern hard coal. Auckland's coal requirements may run into 100,000 or 150,000 tons. Nothing like this amount appears to be in sight before and during the winter. The furnaces at Evans Bay are part coal and part oil fired, and the coal stock aimed at here is limited by storage space to 15,000 tons, to be made good by regular shipments. A large overhead crane is being installed to expedite handling. There are about 6000 tons in the stacks now, and since Christmas shipments have been far below the tonnages needed to build stocks. . January was a light month, but 1500 tons of coal were consumed. During the winter the furnaces can use 1200 tons a week. Auckland apparently sees or fears a shortage of sixty or more thousand tons of coal. The coal problem at Evans Bay is not nearly as heavy as that, but Evans Bay has another problem. COST OF OIL FUEL. The coal-fired furnaces at the Wellington station supply steam for 10,000 kilowatts (Auckland's coal-fired furnaces supply s£eam for. 40,000). After 10,000 the Velox oil-fired steam generators and the standard boilers adapted for oil burning come in at Evans Bay. At pre-war prices, and for intermittent running, oil more than broke even with coal in cost, but today, for long running, oil fuelling costs almost three times as much as coal. Monthly accounts for oil burned at Evans Bay last winter ran towards £20,000 in the peak period—a huge figure, for fuel that must be imported. Power demand varies from month to month, and from hour to hour in a day. At this time .of the year the peaks for Wellington City alone rise to 18,000 or 20,000 kilowatts. In the coming whiter they may reach 40,000-----or 45,000 kilowatts, and the rest of the island will be using more power for heating and lighting. That means allout running of steam plants—and, the Auckland people say, headaches over coal supply; here it will mean great consumption of imported oil fuel, at about £8 a ton. ALTERNATIVE TO RATIONING. Rationing in some form seems to be imperative. Ornamental lighting' and. water heating might be the first to go. The second, at any rate, would raise a storm, for in thousands of homes there is no alternative water-heating system, and on dairy farms electrical water heating is now demanded as essential. Moreover, there are obvious difficulties in controlling the use of power for water heating short of cutting it off altogether. An extension of the daylight-saving period is obviously one means of relieving, if not of fully meeting, the position this year. It is not possiblest» arrive at the power saving that would be effected by daylight saving, for the calculations «J.«*3f2g £ tricate, but an estimate of 20,000 or 25,000 kilowatts would beJ? e*r ' "g probably below, .the mark. That would balance, at least, the money .fJ^MjJ of this country for oil fuel for Evans Bay during the extended period of daylight saving.

The reason for the promptitude in developing this machine would.appear to lie in the certainty of orders. The Martin company has been asked, to supply B-26 machines valued at 131,000,000 dollars to the U.S. Army Air Corps. Other Developments Other developments of the past year in the United States are important. First, the 400-miles-an-hour military machine has become a reality. Next, the 2000 horse-power motor, long a dream of designers, is said to have gone into quantity production. Another notable fact, of which the possibilities cannot be gauged, is the advent of the motor manufacturers in the aviation field. Such an effort has not been made by the automobile makers since 1918, and it is obviously destined to raise the output enormously when the plants begin operations. In some instances special plants.must be built to handle the enormous contracts which have been placed. ~ A major weakness of the industry continues to be the engine bottle-neck. The automobile firms have been called in to widen this bottleneck, for more engines must be built than planes, for obvious reasons. In December Lockheed Hudsons and Bell Airacobras were waiting for power units in the factories of their builders. The reported engine shortage was 300 a month, and the total production was set at 1700 a month. An average of 2J engines must be built for each plane. This bottleneck was expected to be ended by late spring or early summer.