GROWTH OF POWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 886, 1 February 1930, Page 10

GROWTH OF POWER

AUCKLAND LEADS WORln WITH WATER-HEATEKS 4 30 METER-READERS REQUIRED | In 1913 the electric supply of Au Cfc land, then controlled by the _ j Council, required on' v one man to re2 I the meters. I Today the Auckland Eleetric-Po«» j Board requires 30 meter-readers | each man is expected to read in* I meters a day. These figures prove the tremen. I dous growth of electric-power | Auckland. The figures are still mounting at &» J astonishing rate. Between 100 an . ! 150 new consumers are being put’n every week, and the domestic supply P is mounting at the rate of 30 stoves sm 50 water-heaters a week. Few people realise that Auckl,... leads the world in electric hot-uni heaters. Recently the prtcipal of a. 1 English firm, which makes the time switches for suclt meters, was Auckland, and during a chat with u. XV. J. Holdsworth, he told him that no power board in the world was deve’on ing the hot-water system so ranidl. as Auckland. p aly There are between 44.000 and 4; iu. consumers of electric-power in Au'-k land. Because of an adjustment hi counting consumers there has been a reduction recently. At one time a sunter who had a dual supply one »i home and the other in his office wa* counted as two consumers—now he 1, only counted as one. ‘ Only the most efficient system could cope with the stream of business wh eh flows daily through the Power Board's office—approximately 12.000 accounts have to be sent out eacli week Three and a-half floors of the new" Quee. Street building are taken up wholly he the staff, but ultimately it will spread to almost the whole building. This [5 course, will not be for some years but provision is being made for expansion, as the board is only taking short-timi leases from its tenants. Over 2,000,000 transactions ar« handled in a year over the ofles counter. In order to cope efficieitly with them the greatest possible usa of all labour-saving devices las b-en made. WONDERFUL MACHINE One of the machines is known as an addressograph plant, and it works with the most amazing precision. Each consumer’s name, address and meter number is stamped on metal and filed in an ordinary filing system. On tha metal frame containing the particulars there are small coloured tabs. Yellow denotes power, red a waterheater, and green a stove. If con. sumers in certain areas have to be circularised for any particular reason, a tray of consumers’ names is put into the machine, which picks out the required ones—red, yellow or green—and. stamps the circulars much mom quickly than any typist could handle them. There are nine ledger machines, which also act with wonderful precision. Each is operated by one girl, and so complete is the system that in five minutes a correct balance of all outstanding accounts could be produced. The ledgers are be lanced all the time, so that the annual balance is not a bugbear. The yearly or halfyearly balance; can be produced in half a day. NO DODGING PAYMENT Aucklanders apparently charge their addresses very frequently. This provides the office staff with a great deal of extra work. The average change of address is 70 to £0 a day, and at times over 100 require attention. But there is no chance of “dodging” an account—as soon as ar. application is received for a new meter the name is checked to find ou': whether any previous account has no: been paid. This means that bad

debts are reduced to only 2s 6d in £IOO. This year the revenue from consumers of electric power in Auckland will touch £350,000, or approximately £1,780 a day. Last year Auckland used 94.000,000 units of electric-power, but this year the total will be over 100,000,000 units. The greatest demand is for domestic purposes—stoves, light and heating. A few years ago the greatest amount of power was used for traction —trams, etc. —but now this requires only 20 p-er cent, of the total. Now that the board has moved into the Queen Street building, the form-ir headquarters in Quay Street are. being used solely as a works office. There is direct connection by private telephone with Queen Street, which is the head office and the centre of the business organisation. Free service to consumers costs thn board £6 000 a year. Telephone operators are kept on duty for the 24 hours, and service men and cars are in readiness at ail hours of the day or night in case of breakdowns or pov/er stoppages, both overhead or undsrground. Two depots have now been established in the city area where men «md equipment are on the spot to deal with breaks and complaints. The board owns the houses where the men are so employed.