POWER AND PROFIT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18551, 8 November 1923, Page 8

POWER AND PROFIT.

HYDRO-ELECTRIC SCHEMES. NORTH ISLAND PROJECTS. MORE PAYABLE THAN SOUTH PROSPECTS OF ARAPUNI. [BY TKLEGB.APH.— association J CHRISTCHUKCH. Wednesday. In presenting to-day to the members of the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce a detailed statement of the Government's attitude regarding the Lake Coleridge and Waimakariri electric-power schemes, the chief electrical engineer to the. Public Works Department, Mr. L. Birks, urged th»t until the demand in Canterbury had outgrown the capacity of the Lake Coleridge installation, no steps should be taken toward the development of tho Waimakariri scheme. Mr. Birks said that there was an impression in Christchurch that the Government proposed to charge a higher rate to the Lake Coleridge consumers than was necessary, in order to make up anticipated losses on the North Island schemes. This idea was quite false, for several reasons. In the first place, the North Island schemes, being larger in output and starting at much larger loads than did Lake Coleridce. would be more profitable than the Lake Coleridge scheme. ; The Horahora scheme had already demonstrated this, and the Mangahso. Arapum and Waikaremoana schemes were all much larger still, and therefore would start with still better financial prospects. Startin with a load of 30,000 kilowatts, which was already in view, Arapum would pay its way, including sinking fund, in the first year, and would show no appreciable accumulated loss, as Lake Coleridge had dope, Moreover, the law provided clearly and definitely in the State Supply of Electricity Act, 1917, that the accounts for each scheme must be kept separate, and no such confusion of accounts between tho North and South Island schemes, as was feared, could be made. In a reference to the Otarama scheme, Mr. Birks said that although it was an. excellent one from an engineering point of view, it was an expensive one. The dam necessary, in the development at first of 15,000 kilowatts, with an ultimate capacity (when a second larger dam is built at the Esk River) of 45,000 kilowatts, was longer, larger, and more expensive, and more difficult to construct, owing to the high floods to bo provided for, than the Arapuni dam, which provides for 45,000 kilowatts in the first installation, with an ultimate capacity of 120,000 kilowatts. Thus, tho cost per kilowatt of the Otarama dam would be more than three times that of the Arapuni dam, which, was considered by some of the good folks of Canterbury to be such an expensive feature of the North Island development. Mr. Birks said that the cost per kilowatt of the Lake Coleridce head works, powerhouse and plant, and staff village, including the'. engirieerins expenses, up to March 31 last, was £355 000, for 12,000 kilowatts, or less than £30 per kilowatt. The extensions were estimated to cost, excluding* interest on construction, £300,000 for 15,000 kilowatts, or £20 pur kilowatt. Corresponding work at) Otarama was estimated bv Messrs. Hawlev and Company to cost £658.980 for ,15,000 kilowatts, or £44 per kilowatt, more than double the cost of the Lake Coleridge extension. The transmission lines and substations from Otarama to Christchurch would cost £159.620, excluding £20,000 for the connection to the existing reticulation, but the corresponding figures for Lake Coleridge, in addition to the amount already spent and oho reed up to the capital outlay, on which interest was already being paid, was only £41.000.