ADVANTAGES OF ELECTRICITY.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXVI, Issue 18439, 24 March 1922, Page 7

ADVANTAGES OF ELECTRICITY.

VISIT TO THAMES VALLEY. POWER BOARD MEMBERS’ TOUR Recently members of the Wanga-nui-Rangitikei Power Board visited the Thames Valley Power Board district, and their observations are contained in the following report presented at a meeting of the Wanga-nui-Rangitikei Power Board yesterday:—■ On the morning of February the 9th, seven members of the Board were met at tho Te Aroha Railway Station by Mr. Strang, chairman, Mr. R. Sprague, secretary, Messrs Gauvain and McLecd, engineers, and other members of that Board. They had arranged an Itinerary for 3 days and regretted the visit had to be compressed into 2 owing to the short time at the disposal of some of the party. We were motored over a large portion of the district. The roads are level, but badly maintained and cut up with traffic. The weather, fortunately, was fine, so that we had a good time and gained a lot of information that should be profitable to this Board. The whole district lends itself to dairying and. small holdings; the whole country seems to be stocked with cows, cows, and nothing but cows. The district is being rapidly electrified, and although this Power Board was only proclaimed in January, it has 400 consumers connected; with a present revenue of £17,000 per annum and a prospective of £70,000 when fully reticulated. The area of the district is 2300 square miles.

The following transmission lines have been laid out for supplying the area: —11,000 volts, 241 miles; 3,300 volts, 190 miles; 400 volts, 425 miles; total 856 miles. Authority to borrow £550,000 has been obtained. Boroughs to be supplied are Te Aroha, Paeroa, Thames, Morrinsville, Matamata Town Board, townships of Putaruru, Tirau, Netherton, Nagtea, Turua and numerous villages. Factories. —There are about 40 cheese, butter and dried milk factories in the area, the largest being the Waitoa factory with a connected load of 620 horse power, which is now being supplied by the Board. The power for all factories is metered. Farms.—l6so farms have already signed up for power, aud it is estimated that at least 2000 will be coupled up and be using motors when the above lines are erected. This number will eventually increase to probably over 3000. Charges for Power. —In all town areas meters are used for power and light, the lighting being 8d per unit and power 3d per unit down to 7d per unit. In the farming districts no meters are in use and this was decided after careful consideration. The meters would have cost anything up to £BOOO to £lO,OOO to install, and the difficulties of reading and attending to repairs of m’teters would have been very great, in a large area such as the Thames Valley. The use of power and light on the farms is not restricted in any way, it being fully realised that any effort to restrict use will not tend to popularise electricity. So far as the motor for milking machines are concerned, however, the consulting engineers decide the size

of motor to be used and their decision is final. The standard motor is 2 horse-power and only in exceptional cases-is a 3 horse-power motor used. On the chairman of the board’s farm a 3 horse-power motor is installed, and this motor is running a 12 cow plant (consisting of two 6 cow plants and two vacuum pumps), at the same time also a separator and water pump. To prove that the method adopted is satisiactory, it will be of interest to know that in the Matamata district on the Board's area the power factor is slightly under 85 per cent. The charge for the use of these milking machine motors is £2l per annum, plus a charge on the butter fat above 7000 lbs per annum. The butter fat figures are obtained from the dairy companies. This method is proving very satisfactory. The farmer knows exactly w’hat he has.to pay. There is no meter reading, and consequently no expense on this branch, and no dispute over readings. The charge on the price per lb. of butler fat above 7000 lbs can at auy time be varied should it be necessary to do so, and it is claimed that the whole of the system is simplicity itself. It would be practically an impossibility to arrange for meters on farms in an area such as the Thames Valley. The difficulty and expense of getting over country in bad weather to read them would be enormous and no system could be devised for efficiently protecting the Board against fraud. Consulting Engineers.—The consulting engineers have a staff of live engineers stationed in the various districts in the Board’s area. All lilies are carefully surveyed and pegged out, and complete drawings are prepared of all lines at a scale of six chains to the inch. These drawing's show all the poles numbered, exact positions of transformer stations, sizes and full details of same, type of line and sizes of wires, all farms en route; with all connections, rivers, roads, trees, etc. Ail plans are coloured. The plans are so arranged that when the consulting engineers hand .the work over to the Board absolutely full information is available. These plans are not only provided for main lines, but for all lines in the Board’s area. Apart from the drawings provided for the Board, duplicates are supplied to the engineers and foremen on the works. Drawings of all railway and telegraph crossings are provided for the departments, the Board and the foremen. Nearly 10U of such drawings have already been made. Drawings of structural work for different types of transformer stations and various types of switchgear are also provided. So far nearly 200 drawings have been made, and this number will be largely increased.

Offices and Depots.—The Board’s policy has been to provide depots in the various districts with a view to being able to cater for the supply of these districts as provided for in the Electric Power Boards Act. Quite a large and profitable business has been built up in this manner, and the profit on this portion of the undertaking is a set off against general administration expenses and by this means the Board has refrained from laying any rate on its territory. The towns and farming districts very much appreciate the installation of these depots and the whole scheme then becomes more self-contained and co-operative. The head office of the Board is at Te Aroha, and at present temporary offices are rented at a cost of £6B per annum. Offices are now being erected, and will shortly be in use and will in addition contain showroom, testrogms, workshops. It is the intention of the Board to carry out all its testing and repair work itself, thereby saving the farmer considerable expense and time. Spare motors for milking plants are available at all the depots, and have been sent out at a moment’s notice. If a motor breaks down during one milking, a new motor is installed in readiness for the next milking. A portion of the new offices have been rented to the Piako County Council for three years, after which time it is estimated the Board will require the whole of tie room.

Erection Work.—A very complete system has been organised. As the goods arrive they are checked off on the back of the order form. The consulting engineers receive a duplicate of the order, and a triplicate of the invoice. They therefore as well as the Board have an exact check of all orders Placed and all goods received. The goods are checked on arrival at to whichever depot they are forwarded and entered up in the stores book. All stores issued are only issued on an order from the foremen (and this applies to all tools issued also) and are debited to the various sections on which they are used. Complete costs of both material and wages are compiled for each section of line. The consulting engineers have divided the district up into various sections, and each section is numbered and the cost for each section is tabulated. In connection with these various sections separate complete estimates are prepared by the consulting engineers for each section, and these estimates are checked off with the actual costs. Quite apart from the ordinary time sheets which are collected daily; weekly progress sheets are also issued. In addition to this the consulting engineers have also a special weekly progress sheet, showing exactly what work has been done by each gang, and in addition each of the engineers employed , by the consulting engineers furnish them with a weekly report. Rough wages costs are therefore available each week, and these are finally tabulated and checked so that the cost of any particular section is available during construction. The country over which the Board operates is in places of an extremely rough nature, and the line erected from the Government substation at Waikino to Paeroa is by far the most difficult to construct in the South Auckland Power Board’s Area. Transport is a matter which has required a considerable amount of organisation owing to the large area controlled by the Board. The Board has been able to do its own carting a good deal cheaper than by letting it on contract. The following figures will indicate the amount of work done to date:— 11.000 volt lines, 135 miles erected. 3,300 volt lines, 31 miles erected. 400 volt lines,B4 miles erected. Total: 250 miles erected. Practically the whole of these lines are alive and supplying power. In addition, about 30 miles of . pole line is also erected upon which wiring is proceeding. Some forty-eight transformer stations have been erect-

ed and coupled up, the largest being 300 K.V.A., and the smallest 5 K.V.A. The towns of Paeroa and Matamata have been reticulated and are supplied with power, whilst Te Aroha is supplied with power in bulk. Morrinsville town is nearly reticulated and will be supplied with power about the middle of March. This Board was the first power board in New Zealand to supply power under the Electric Power Board’s Act, current being switched on by the Minister of Public Works on March 29th, 1921. Power was actually supplied on March 11th 1921, and this notwithstanding the fact that the Board had to build its own main transmission lines from the Government substations, whereas in the case of the other Power Boards in the South Auckland area the Government built the main transmission lines. It w r as interesting to visit the Horahora Generating Station where nature is doing the tvork of man by means of a 28ft. fall of water flowing through six turbines developing an aggregate of 8000 horse power with a further extension now under construction.

Another interesting enterprise inspected was that of the Waitoa Butter and Milk Powder factory. As we have two or three localities favourable for this industry a few particulars should be interesting. The main building is of lour stories and constructed in ferro-concrete equipped with a 5 unit plant driven by 650 horse-power steam and electricity combined. The capacity of the three churns is 4 J tons at each operation. The present daily output is 26,000 lbs of milk powder. The supply of milk amounts to over 100 tons a day supplied by 200 dairies comprising some 10,000 cows. The haulage is performed by eleven Edison-Walk-er electric trucks having 3 tons capacity each. The average daily milk run is 50 miles, but in a number of cases the run is 66 miles, some of the milk being brought a distance of 12 miles which has to reach the factory while containing animal heat. A garage has been erected alongside the factory to hold sixteen trucks which can all be electrically charged at the same time. Each truck runs 3 or 4 trips each morning and the same number in the afternoon. The process requires delivery of each milking during the day. The process of manufactures in general at the factory is as follows: The milk on arrival is separated, the cream being then pumped into the butter department, the skim milk is heated and sprayed into a large vertical flume. Spraying into hot air at a very high pressure (700 lbs. to 1 square inch) constitutes the action of making, and drying the powder, which falls to the bottom of the cone shaped flume and is there pumped into the pulverisers, sifters, and automatic packers. The powder never reaches boiling temperature, and is readily dissolved in cold water. It the powder is mixed with water and butter added the richness can be varied to taste and is in all respects equal to ordinary milk Willi, the advantage that the powder is' sterilized.

In conclusion we wish to tender our sincere thanks to ’the Thames Valley Electric Power Board for the splendid time experienced and information gained, which should materially assist our Board in its administrative capacity.