ELECTRIC POWER.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5128, 20 May 1927, Page 3

ELECTRIC POWER.

PURCHASE OF WAIHI CO.’S PLANT. RELIEF FOR HORAHORA. Negotiations for the purchase of the Waihi Grand Junction Gold Milling Company’s power plant by the Public Works Department, entered into in the early part of the year, ■have now’ reached a stage whereby their completion may be expected any day. Prior to the first week in March last the company was only called upon to supply power to the Government in the case of interruptions to the Horahora line, and in order to perform this service kept the fires in the furnaces bunked. However, since March 11 the company has. been called upon to generate the maximum supply of power for six days in each week, namely 2500 h.p., which equivalent to 2000 kilowatts.

The Junction Company’s plant consists of six Babcock boilers, each about 1000 h.p., and five steam turbines, aggregating 4000 h.p., which would enable the company to increase its supply by approximately another 1000 h.p. The demand on the Horahora plant with its maximum supply of 10,000 kilowatts has lately been such that the Grand Junction company, with about a. fifth of that capacity,’has found it necessary to come to the rescue and at peak load periods, particularly in the afternoons and evenings, the auxiliary sources of supply, at Waiihi and at Tauranga are now' supplying their maximum quota. Horahora is drawing the surplus power from the two Tauranga stations, McLaren’s Falls and Omanawa, Power at the Grand Junction Company’s plant is generated between the hours of 1 p.m. and 9 p.m., and is run by a staff of five, including the officer in charge, Mr W. F. Selling, and the consumption of coal is at the rate of. 12 tons a day.