CITY SUB-STATION

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 60, 8 September 1931, Page 10

CITY SUB-STATION

OPEN TO PUBLIC THIS WEEK

AN ELECTRICAL LAMPLIGHTER

As one of the features of the Faraday centenary celebrations—and the biggest of them all—the General Manager of tho City Electricity Department, Mr. M. Cable, has invited the public to visit the main city electrical sub-station, Jervois quay, any evening this week between 7 and 9 p.m. Children under 16 years of age will not be admitted. The plant is very impressive, particularly the two great frequency changers, the largest of their type in the Dominion, and members, of the substation staff will explain points raised by visitors. One of tho small exhibits is the "radiovisor," a very clever automatic lamp-lighter which controls one of the street lamp sections of the city. The heart of this little appliance (it weighs a couple- of pounds or so), is an adaptation of the selenium cell, which responds to variations in light intensity. As soon as darkness descends—the degree of sensitiveness being adjustable —the cell operates a switch and the lights flash on; when dawn comos again the cell reverses its action and the lights go out. Therefore tho appliance- turns lights on and off according to the real needs of light and dark, not merely by the clock, a black fog, for instance, will light every lamp in the section, and when the sun fights through again will switch them off till evening.