Well Catered For.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20283, 18 April 1934, Page 6

Well Catered For .

Electricity in N.Z. Rural Districts. JN no other country are farmers better supplied with electricity than in the Dominion, said Mr J. R. Templin, when dealing with the economic side of Tural electrification in a paper read to the Canterbury College Engineering Society last night. He told the meeting that £25,000,000 to £30,000,000 were invested in electrical undertakings in New Zealand, the Government being responsible for £13,000,000 and public bodies for the rest. The success of rural electrical distribution depended upon the close co-ordination of engineering and finance. In New Zealand the work was done by electric power boards, whose first job was to obtain a load survey of the whole district. The survey not only showed the location of possible consumers, but also gave an estimate of the power consumption of each, and w T as used by the engineer in compiling a report to the board, showing the commercial prospects of the scheme. Two important items in the estimate were the maximum demand to be expected and the revenue that could be relied upon. Everything was done to ensure that rural supplies were as reliable as the supply of current to urban areas. It was good economy to have the main substation or source of supply as near the load centre as possible, said Mr Templin. It was also a good practice to divide the area of supply into sections with a feeder to each section, in order to limit interruptions of the supply to a restricted area. Steel and copper-clad steel were suitable conductors for lightly-loaded lines, while copper and aluminium cable steel reinforced was used for the main feeder. Mr Templin then dealt with some technical problems of reticulation, and concluded by again stressing the commercial importance of rural electrification.