THE OTAGO POWER BOARD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20801, 21 August 1929, Page 8

THE OTAGO POWER BOARD

The chairman of the Otago Electric Power Board took the opportunity, at the meeting of that body yesterday, to reply to a spirited analysis of the board’s policy that lias lately been published in the correspondence columns of the Daily Times. The fact that the board has found it necessary to utilise its rating powers this year in order that it may balance its revenue account hag not unnaturally created a critical spirit in some of the residents in the districts in whi"h it operates and this should hUve the effect of increasing the interest that is taken by them in the activities of the board. The members of the board itself will be all the more alive to a sense of their responsibilities if they realise that the attention of their constituents is being closely directed to their proceedings. Tin? board" is passing through that trying period which is the early experience of all authorities engaged in similar operations. It has to incur a considerable capital expenditure and its revenue, if not altogether an uncertain quantity—a contingency against which it now seeks to protect itself by securing guarantees from prospective consumers—is practically certain it; the more sparsely populated areas to fall considerably below the amount that will defray the interest on the expenditure. The board assumed, as the chairman said at its meeting yesterday, that the profits it derived from the sale of current in the more closelysettled areas would counterbalance the losses it would suffer in the districts where long transmission lines are required to convey the service to a small number of consumers. Unfortunately for the board, it was disappointed in respect of the support it obtained in Lawrence, and, as has been shown in the correspondence we have published, the loss that is being sustained in connection with the supply of electric light and power to the residents in that borough is dis tinctly severe. It may not he a fair assumption that the experience which the board has had in Lawrence will be repeated if, and when, it. extends its service to Maniototo. The chairman spoke hopefully yesterday of the prospects of this extension. But the estimates which he quoted suggest that the revenue would hardly balance the expenditure. Certainly the estimates of revenue did not include any return from the industrial loading that is expected. The estimate of expenditure can hardly, however, be regarded as rigid. The danger that it may prove to be an under-estimate cannot be ignored. On the other hand, there is a certain amount of. speculation respecting the number of consumers that will be secured and respecting the revenue that will be ob tained from them. In the circumstances it seems very desirable that the board should carefully explore the area before it itself and the ratepayers are irrevocably committed to the, undertaking. The ultimate success of the schemes for the extension of the benefit of electric lighting and electric power to the country districts may almost bo taken for granted. An unfavourable experience at the inception of a scheme, possibly involving the ratepayers in heavy loss, may, however, seriously postpone the. time when the enterprise will be firmly established.