POWER SHORTAGE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 1, Issue 50, 16 August 1939, Page 5

POWER SHORTAGE

FEARS FOR NEXT "YEAR SOU&IERN END OF ISLAND Fears that there would be a shortage of electricity in 1940 in che southern, half of the North Island were expressed in a letter read at Monday night's meeting of the Wha katane Borough Council from the Chief Electrical Engineer, Public Works Department, though the en-, gineer stated that it was not anti-« cipated that this end of the island would be affected. This advice was received by the council in reply to a letter of inquiry in which it had r.s!ved whether it should retain its' generating plant in view of such an emergency. The matter was referred to in the minutes of the Finance and Electri. cal Committee which stated that n j letter had been received inquiring the price of the oil pressure governor without the pelton wheel and j generator., I In this connection the Mayor had ! reported that Mr R. Worley, the engineer advising the council regarding its water supply, had strongly urged that the council keep its plant intact in view of a possible national power shortage in 1940. The council then wrote to the department, and in reply the engineer said that' whilst the State undertakings might be fully loaded during the winter of 1940 he did not anticipate that the conditions would be so bad as to warrant asking the council to retain its stand-by plant. Conditions were not likely to he acute in the northern half of the island, and the main difficulty would be in supplying the load in the southern half of the island, which is supplied from Mangahao and Wai_ karemoana with a certain amount of assistance from the north via the Arapuni-Stratford transmission line. The engineer suggested that it might be unwise to sell the oil pressure governor as this would make jt very much more difficult to dispose of the rest of the plant. In connection with the disposal of the plant letters were received from the Dunedin City Council asking for particulars of the load the pelton wheels were designed for, and from the Golden Bay Electric Power Board asking for full particulars of the generators and the switchboard and recording instruments. A letter was also received from the electrical engineer Capetown, giving a list of African institutions which might be interested in purchasing' the plant.