Horahora Hydro – Electric System Bought by the Government from the Waihi Gold Mining Company.

Progress, Volume XV, Issue 1, 1 September 1919, Page 596597

Horahora Hydro - Electric System Bought by the Government from the Waihi Gold Mining Company.

f Purchased for £212,000. The Government has come to terms with the Waihi Gold Mining Company for the purchase of the Horahora hydro-electric system. The arrangement will be that the company will have all the power it requires, and the remaining power will be distributed by the Government for domestic and industrial uses in the towns of the Hauraki district and in urban and rural parts of the Waikato. The price paid by the Government is mentioned as being £212,000.

The Horahora electrical power works, which are situated on the Waikato River, a few miles above Cambridge, were erected by the Waihi Gold Mining .Company a few years ago. The sum total expended on the works, according to the company’s last published statement, is about £200,000. The present plant is capable of developing about 9000 horse-power. The addition of two more units, it is estimated, would give an additional 3000 horse-power, thus making a total of 12,000 horse-power. The Waihi Company’s maximum demand is about 4000 horse-power, thus leaving a

balance of some 8000 horse-powpr, which will be available. for distribution throughout the Waikato and adjacent districts, and as far as Auckland. The route of a transmission line to Auckland would roughly follow the railway line. Cambridge would be the first town to be served,..and Hamilton would be next on the route. The requirements of this growing town, the largest on the line, would at present probably be not more than about 200 horse-power, and it is probable that if 500 horse-power were, allocated to it it would serve all its requirements for several years to come.' The

smaller townships, of which there are a large number between Hamilton and Auckland, would require correspondingly smaller allocations*. The distance of Horahora from Auckland is slightly over 100 miles. Under the arrangement between the Government and the Waihi Company, which was entered into in 1909 in regard to the utilisation of power from the Horahora Fails, the Company agreed to pay £IOOO a year for the concession. The scheme was the first of its kind in the North Island, and the second of any importance in New Zealand. The first large scheme in operation in New Zealand was the Waipori installation near Dunedin.