DUPLICATING WAIPORI PLANT.

Evening Star, Issue 13102, 7 November 1908, Page 12

DUPLICATING WAIPORI PLANT.

; WHY NOT CALL FOR TENDERS? ‘ On/jiWednesdaTi; October 21, jha City’ ! Council adopted - the following rcoommend i--1 tiou of their' Electric Power and Light'ng • Gcmmittre: ’ Hiving approved of the city electrical 1 engineer’s minutes, authority bo granted to the city electrical engineer to proceed with the necessary plans and specifica- ' Hone, with a view to calling tenders for • the duplication of the generating plant at ‘ Waipori, at an estimated cost of £37,000. ‘ It is understood that at the Council mect- ! mg on Wednesday last the above reeolutio was rescinded (by the Standing Orders being suspended) in favor of one providing for the duplication of the work without calling for tenders. In view of this de- ' e.ision, the following interviews granted to j one representative will be of interest: i Mr Jones of Turnbull and Jones, said ( thtl the firm he represented (the Westinghouse Company) would be willing to lender , if given the opjiortonrty, and he had , already forwarded the specifications ! Homo to them. He recognised that , there were some points in favor of [ Air Stark's proposal that the General Electrical and Engineering Company, who put j in the present installation at AVaipori, should be given an order to duplicate it. The City's position was that practically all the | power available under the present instal- , latiou had been sold, and no more orders for ' power could be accepted until the nddi- , tional plant was in place. Therefore, the • sooner the plant was duplicated the , better, and it would save time to ! simply cable to the General Electrical Company an order to produce a , plant similar to that supplied by them ■ as the successful tenderers to the old Waipori Company, and afterwards taken over ny tiie City Council. He estimated that this method might save nearly six months’ time, as compared with calling for tenders. , Another point was that if the complete . plant were uniform, less spare gear would ! be required than if the new units were of a different make. In this connection he mentioned that even for the present installation a third unit was necessary if two , were worked continuously, as is the case at Waipori. so that if anything happened , to one, and it needed overhaul, it could , be switched off and the spare one brought . in to replace it. As against Air Stark’s , proposal stood the general principle that , big jobs for a Corporation should be open , for competition to reputable firms capable j °f turning out the high-class work abso- : lutely required where high tension currents [ were used. He mentioned also that his firm, the Westinghouse, had carried out ; the installation (transformers, etc.) at . Halfway Bush, but this was small com- : pared with the installation at AVaipori. Unless the question of the time taken to duplicate the plant was paramount the . whole job should be tendered for. t , Air J. Burt, of Hie firm of A. and T. [ Burt, said that the Horae firms for which t they were agents would be willing to ten- I | der. He had already sent them the spec hi- i [ cations, and the;- would be with their tender by the end of this year. He . pointed out that the proposal to repeat i the order with the General Electrical ■ and Engineering Company, provided that their price was not in excess ■ of the figure at which they supplied the present installation, would be a good , thing for that firm, but not for the City, as there had been a tremendous fall in tiie i price of the raw material eince. Copper, , for instance, which on the 15th January, ; 1907, stood at £lO3 15s per ton. was now ■ down to £6l 17s 6d. or, say, £64 for cop- . per for electrical purposes. The market . in iron had also fallen. : Air Lasoellos-Parrington, of the United [ Electrical Construction Company, eaid that i he also had forwarded to the Home firms ( his company represented the specifications i for the job. and they would he prepared . , to tender for it if given the chance, J ; which they undoubtedly should be. He . doubted if calling for tenders won't! [ imply much, if any, delay in getting the plant duplicated. He disagreed entirely , with the objection ra'sed by the city L electrical engineer that if machines of dif- , ferent make from the present ones were i installed it would be impossible or difficult to get the two sets to work together in parallel. It could be done with ease. , As to spare parts, they were necessary in . every plant, and no more would be rc- , quired if machines of a- different make . were installed than would be the case if the General Electrical Company duplicated the plant with machines of the same type as those now in use. • CT T. Scott strongly advocated calling , for tenders for the job. It would not I mean a delay of more than two months al the outside. He thought that the Coun- , cil would make a huge blunder if they , allowed work to be let without calling for j public competition. There was no know--5 ing what such a practice might lead to.