Mangahao Station Beginning of N.I. Hydro Power

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 14, Issue 42, 23 September 1949, Page 5

Mangahao Station Beginning of N.I. Hydro Power

Mangahao power station —the real beginning of hydro power in the North Island —will celebrate its 25th birthday tomorrow. A quarter of a century ago Mangahao was the biggest news in Wellington. New electric clocks announced op their faces “Mangahao Time,” but that is a myth now, for the whole power system is tied together, and it is just “hydro time.”

Cheap, Unlimited Power Mangahao promised, in popular talk, cheap power unlimited* but within three years the station, caught by a long drought, was overwhelmed by the demands made on it for more and more power.

By September, 1928, for instance, Wellington was asking for almost double the power the city, had guaranteed to take for that year. Steam was used to make up the difference.

Year after year, for a quarter of a century, Mangahao has pulled full weight, right up to the designed 19,200 kilowatts, but in these later years ‘this now least member of the North Island chain has been swamped out of the news by the bigger fellows—Arapuni, Karapiro, Waikaremoana’s three-decker stations, and Maraetai, in the making.

Last year Mangahao contributed 86,500,000 of the 1,718,000,000 units generated in the North Island, and that made quite a difference in power rationing; Evans Bay steam station contributed 49,500,000. A Nice Problem Therein is a nice problem in coal saving figuring. How many tens of thousands of tons of coal has Mangahao kept underground for future use since the first pelton-driven generators were started yp a quarter of a century ago? The Minister in charge of the State Hydro-electric Department (Mr Semple) proposes to mark Mangahao’s birthday with a gathering at the station. Delegates to the power boards conference, local authorities, engineers, and others interested are being asked to go out and look the station over.