THE ELECTRIC AGE

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 206, 26 May 1920, Page 7

THE ELECTRIC AGE

WAR-TIME DEVELOPMENT

ORGANISATION OP GREAT BRITAIN'S POWER

"Just as the wars of the 'CO's found the world waking up to tho power of steam, so did the recent great war find us emerging into an electrical "age," said Sir Arnold Gridley to a. Dojiiniox representative yesterday. SU - Arnold Gridley was tho director of the electrio power department of the Munitions Council during tho war, and his task was to 00-ordinato and develop the electric power plants cf tho Ilnited \ingdom for war work. Sir Arnold Gridley is in New Zealand combining business with pleasure. After live' years of very strenuous work he felt that ho needed a. holiday.. Being an electrical expert, he is interested in hydro-elec-tric power, which ho thinks New Zealand is especially well equipped to produce.

"My experience," paid the visitor, "has been with ''team-driven plants, and those driven by exhaust steam and waste gases. In all, we had 600 electrical power undertakings 'under control in the Kingdom of a probable value of .£500,000,000. To give you an idea of what development in the generation, of electricity the war brought about, tho output increased from 2,000,000,000 units in 1914 to 4,000,000,000 units in development in four years equal to the previous thirty-two years' electrical growth in Great Britain. In 1911 tho generating plants of Great Britain were producing 1,100,000 kilowatts, in 1918 tho 2,000,000 mark had been reached, so that it may bo said that the electrio age has been forced upon the world by the war. "Our job was to see that all the plants were kept running. There were no such things as stand-bys or reserves anywhere. If a plant did happen to break down, the people had to go without light in. their homes—the munition works had to be kept going, no matter who suffered.

"The biggest individual source of supply ill the Kingdom was the Newcastle Electrio Supply Co. (at Newcastle-on-Tyno), which produced 563,000,000 units par annum by coal, steam exhausts, and waste gases. All round Newcastle and Middlesborough are big steel works, and formerly exhaust steam in considerable quantities. and wasto gases from the blast furnaces were allowed to blow off into the air. Now they are tapped for service. The steam from exhausts ia led into turbines coupled with generating sets and the gases are fed to furnaces instead of coal.

"A company, of Which I was formerly a director, had a plant which produced 120,000.000 units a year, and its coal bill was iBOO. How was it done? Well, wo got permission to measure the steam exhausts and waste gas from a group of steel companies, and armed with this data, we were able to go to the companies and, in return for what they were giving the air, to offer them electric power at .2d., a royalty ori the unit output, and also return them the water used for condensation purposes." Sir Arnold Gridley also stated that all the firms engaged in the manufacture of electrical plants at Home were full of work, and likely to bo for a few years to come, not only to supply orders which could not be fulfilled during the war period, but to provide plant for fresh developmental work all over the world.