HYDRO ELECTRICITY

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVII, Issue 21529, 16 December 1939, Page 28 (Supplement)

HYDRO ELECTRICITY

HARNESSING THE WATERS In the phenomenal growth of industry electricity has played no small part. Nothing has done more to promote manufacturing, to alter the aspect of life throughout New Zealand, to assist and speed the factory processes of secondary industry, than the provision in the last 30 years of an ample cheap and universal supply of electric power. Although electricity was in use in New Zealand before that date, no large-scale schemes for the provision of power, light and heat came into being until after 1910. In that year the Aid to Water-Power Works Act was passed, and the scheme for the development of a power-house at Lake Coleridge was selected for a State experiment. The work commenced in 1911, and in 1915 the scheme came into operation. It was a success, and since then the output has been doubled and re-doubled. As the demand on Coleridge grew, and as its success became widely recognised, other power plants came into being. Mangahao w r as completed in 1925, Waikaremoana in 1929. Arapuni in the same year, and Waitaki in 1934. The most wonderful discovery man has made, electricity, has. in New’ Zealand, as in other countries, revolutionised industry and private life. The power of the rain and snow, the rivers and lakes has been harnessed to benefit man in innumerable ways.