TENDERS ACCEPTED

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16202, 27 November 1926, Page 5

TENDERS ACCEPTED

WAIKAREMOANA POWER MORE BRITISH MACHINERY (Special to the Ha'-Md.) WELLINGTON, this day. Tenders aggregating over £130,000 have been accepted by the Government for the supply of the principal machinery to complete the first section of the main hydro-electric scheme utilising water from \\ aikaremoana. The successful contractors, in every case supplying British goods, are: Two steel pipe lines. Dunedin Engineering au.i Steel Co., £5869; two generators, Metropolitan Vickers Electric Co,. £20,242; turbines, Sir W. G. Armstrong- Whitworth Co., London. £21,686; indoor control gear, witn switch gear, Cory Wright and Salmon, on behalf of the English Electric Co., £.742-1; transformers, 110,000-volt, Metropolitan Vickers Co., £15,794. . The demand for hydro-electric power from the Mangahao supply has so greatly exceeded expectations that one board in the Wellington suburbs has to raise an additional £150,000 for further reticulation. All the boards supplied from Mangahoa arc well ahead of their guarantees,- and consequently Waikaremoana will be required to take a good load when the first section of the scheme is completed. The work is being done under the same system as Mangahao, the Public Works Department doing all the heavy construction, and securing its pipe line and machinery by contract.

INTERESTING FEATURES.

The tenders just accepted comprise the largest portions of the equipment, but a further series for machinery, not requiring so long a time for construction, will be closed about; January. Waikaremoana has an ultimate eapaciay of 120,000 kilowatts, but the scheme for which the machinery has been purchased will develop the first section of 40,000 kilowatts. It comprises two generators of 20,000 kilowatts driven direct from Francis type turbines, the alternator running at 428 revolutions per minute. A feature of the power house, which the Department is constructing, is that only a limited amount of switch gear,will be housed in the station, the balance of the transformers and high tension gear being of the outdoor type to be erected on a site adjacent to the power house. The latter is to be placed on Vvhakaratnarino flat, 1070 ft, below the level of the lake, and the fall utilised will be that from Kaitawa lake, its flow being augmented by diverting the water from a river. The supply will be taken along an open cut and tunnel 680 ft. in length to the surge chamber at the head of a double line of steel pipes, about six feet in diameter, and having a fall of 670 ft. to the power house. In anticipation of the future demand power lines have been surveyed to connect with Mangahao power at Napier. As this system will reach that point in January tenders are now being called for the towers required on the Waikaremoana-Napier newer lino. The northwards line is also planned, and a sub-station for the Gisborne supply area will be erected near Patutahi.