REDUCED POWER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21515, 12 June 1933, Page 10

REDUCED POWER

SUPPLY TO WELLINGTON trouble at waikaremoana EFFECT ON ELECTRIC CLOCKS [BY TEEKGJI.VPH —OWN CORRESPONDENT] WELLINGTON, Saturday Normally the Waikaremoana and Mangahao hydro-electric power stations feed into common transmission lines to operate as one combined station. At 8.41 this morning trouble in one of the main switches of the combined system cut off power from Waikaremoana and throw the whole load on to Mangahao and the generatQrs there were considerably overloaded. As a consequence the voltage over the transmission lines fell. Tho city feed-lino voltage dropped from 11,000 to 9000 volts and there was a corresponding drop in tho voltage right down to the 230-volt supply which reaches the city user. Tho heavy load also slowed up the generators and this resulted in a reduction in the number of frequencies or cycles per second from the standard of 50 to perhaps 45. Tho lower voltage meant that all lights burned with much less brilliancy and electric ranges and radiators were also affected. The lower frequency affected motors of all kinds .and a curious effect was found in many electrio clocks in public places. This morning's complication resulted in electric clocks losing about four minutes in half an hour. However, the engineers at the power stations undertook to put them right again by the simple method of running the generators just a trifle fast until the four minutes were axactly made up, after which the generators will be brought back to the unvarying 50 cycles per second. Tho Evans Bay steam station was brought into operation, but within half an hour the supply was normal again, apart from that very slight speeding up of the clock correctors miles away from Wellington.