THE Hauraki Plains Gazette With which is Incorporated THE OHINEMURI GAZETTE. MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, FRIDAY. “Public Service.” WEDNESDAY, JULY 9, 1943. ELECTRICITY SHORTAGE

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 52, Issue 3286, 9 July 1943, Page 4

THE Hauraki Plains Gazette With which is Incorporated THE OHINEMURI GAZETTE. MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, FRIDAY. “Public Service.” WEDNESDAY, JULY 9, 1943. ELECTRICITY SHORTAGE

Three items of interest to consumers of electricity are the news that the repairs at Arapuni power-station have been completed, but to avoid the risk of further breakdown it will be necessary to reduce the load previously carried; a mishap at the Evans Bay power-station has put out of present commission a 6000 kilowatt generating unit for a period that cannot yet be determined; • and regulations have been gazetted imposing certain restrictions on electrical water-heating installations. All these come as reminders of the very narrow margin between the supply and demand of electrical current. To keep pace with the demand, all the power stations, in the North Island especially, have been running at full capacity, imposing a continuous heavy strain on machinery with little or no opportunity for periodical rests and overhauls. What were orignally designed by stand-by plants are, moreover, now apparently in full service. What ought to have been done in the past to make provision against such a situation arising is one thing. What is possible to be done now is another question. It will be recalled that the Power Boards’ Association recently declared that previous representations, emphasised, and reiterated later, for long-term planning and hydro-electric construction work, had been rejected as the result of what has been proved to have been a Ministerial underestimate of future requirements. Nothing can be done in the meantime to make up leeway because of the impossibility under wartime conditions of obtaining the necesary plant for new installation, and even if these were immediately obtainable, hydroelectric power-stations are not the sort of things that can be constructed at short notice and in a brief space of time. If there is any consolation to be derived from the present electricity shortage it is that the value and extreme importance of longterm planning and construction should have been'driven sharply home to those, responsible. All that remains now is for each and every person to take the utmost care to see that absolutely no power is wasted not only in the house but in shop and factory also.