ELECTRIFYING BRITAIN

Waikato Times, Volume 106, Issue 17839, 11 October 1929, Page 2

ELECTRIFYING BRITAIN

£9,500,000 ORDERS PLACED. WORK FOR MANY MEN. Contracts to the value of about £9,500,000 have already been placed by the Central Electricity Board in connection with the schemes for carrying electricity to all corners of Great Britain (says a London paper). The service, when the “grid” system is installed in various areas, existing stations are linked, and others established where necessary, will reach at least 90 per cent, of the population. Areas for which plans are complete are Central Scotland, South-Eastern England, which ranges from Peterborough to the South-East Coast (including London), and extends as fatwest as Heading; Central England; North-West England and North Wales, which covers 85 per cent, of the cotton area; and Mid-East England, which covers the whole textile area. Orders Widely Shared. Many parts of England are sharing the contracts placed, which include orders for large numbers of latticework towers for carrying transmission lines, hundreds of miles of transmission cables, and tens of thousands of insulators. Engineering firms are busy, too, with large orders for transformers and switch gear. A lot of labour also will be required to erect the towers and for other work. In the Central Scotland area, for example, 1440 lattice towers will have to be fixed, and 730 in the South-East England area. Only in isolated instances, and then indirectly, have the public yet begun to reap any of the advantages of this great readjustment and extension of the electricity supply. The greatest progress has been made in Central Scotland, where current is being transmitted over a portion of the hoard’s system. For the first time in the history of this country current has been transmitted in that area at 132,000 volts.