A POWERLESS POWER PLANT.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4806, 5 July 1939, Page 5

A POWERLESS POWER PLANT.

(To the Editor). Sir, —As a consumer of power from the Wairere Power Board it appears to me that, notwithstanding all attempts to make the supply adequate to the needs of consumers, there .is still some unsurmount able obstacle to a satisfactory solution to the problem. Some few years back when the forces of Nature put the whole generating plant out of action, and the consumers were without power for some two or three weeks, it was decided that in order to prevent a recurrence of the trouble, a standby plant should be installed. This w;as done, at considerable expense, and the ordinary outsider thought that the future supply of power was assured under almost any circumstances. However, we now find that when -the main generator has to be put out ‘of commission for repairs, the auxiliary plant is totally inadequate to meet the needs of the district. All the industries that depend on electricity ;as motive power are compelled to cease operations, and the limited supply iof power that can be generated is distributed in hourly doses at intervals during the day.

This indicates, I think, that the expenditure incurred in installing; a standby plant was for all practical purposes a sheer waste of money, and little engineering foresight was displayed when the work was proposed. From the ordinary layman’s point of view, the whole trouble with our power supply seems to be that the Board has extended the reticulation of the district out of all proportion tc the adequacy of the supply available, and the present plant (auxiliary included) is incapable of fully meeting the needs of the consumers. This is the problem; and it is due time that the Board faced up to it. The only logical solution is to link up with the main national supply, and leave the present plant for use in reducing the peak load on which I understand the charge for current is made, to as low a mark as possible. This idea is supported by the fact that I understand the present generating capacity at Wairere is the limit that will be allowed by the Government. In any case we have abundant evidence that even if a greater generating capacity were allowed, the water supply from the Mokau River is not stable enough to warrant any further expenditure in such direction.

Let us forget our parochialism, and cease wasting any more money in building walls, deepening tail-races, or installing useless, standby plants. Get in on the national scheme, and although we may still have minor troubles from that source, we will be much further on the way towards efficiency as regards power supply, than we will ever be by attempting to carry on with our present independent unit.—l am, etc.

“CANDLE LIGHT.”