POWER PROBLEMS

Chronicle (Levin), 10 February 1949, Page 4

POWER PROBLEMS

Board 0§cials' Comment Oveir 7000 circulars have been posted to electricity users in the Horowhenua who are " .affected by the new system of individual rationing introduced by the board as from February 1. The actual allocations are being delivered by the meter readers in the course of their rounds, and in some cases these quotas have already been received. ' Considerable work has been entailed by the introduction of the new system and the clerical staff of the board has done sterling work over the past few days, workj ing overtime most nights in order ,to keep pace with the meter read-j-ers. j Arready manv requests for power additional to the ration have been received by the board, but the managing-secretary, Mr. R. A. Frederikson, said this morning that most of the Iet+ers received were from persons- seeking information rather than special consideration. The majority of the consumers were sympathetic wi'h the position in which the board had been pT'aced. and were looking ' forward to doing their own rationing rather than. have their power disconneeted for periods. Explaining . some points which have arisen, Mr. Frederikson said that one or. two psrsons who did not ha,ve a water heater installed, and in consequence did nc-t receive the additional 300 units were a-~k-ing the reason. The point th'ere was that allocations were based mainly on each electrical insta'lation in the house and a person app'ying for an increase would be requred to justify such increase for that particffiar installation. In another case there might be two consumers. Consumer A's annual irage is 4000 units and consumer B uses 2000. Under the new svstem A wih receive a quota of 3600 and B 1800. , Consumer B then considers himself hard done by, because he has onlv used 2000 units and is stiT cut, whereas consumer A used 4000 and reeeives double the quota of B. The answer there, said Mr. Frederikson, was that the board's quota of electricity is 'ca-sed cn a five per cent. increase, so th?t consumer A's usage of power has raissd the board's quota by 200 units a year/ whereas consumer B's usage has added only 100 units. In other words consumer A has always had twice as much and has in consequence built up tne board's quota, thus making available to the board more units to pass on to new connections. Commenting on the pohcy in regard to new consumers, Mr. Frederikson stated that the quotas for them wouid be assessed by the board on the basis of what was considered adequate for norma! domestic purposes.