Power Board Explains Shortage to County Council

Lake County Mail, Issue 50, 19 May 1948, Page 1

Power Board Explains Shortage to County Council

Otago Central Electric Power Board representatives, Messrs Briggins, Saunders and A. E. Ellis, met the hake * County Council iast Thursday. Their reason—to assure the council that the first aiea of any consequence that the board contemplated reticulating was the Wakatipu area. When? The answer was a simple one. When the board has sufficient power! And then when the board has sufficient materials. When will the board have sufficient power ? Three or four years. Perhaps. The set-up seems to be, from information given to the council in the course of the discussions, that the present generating machinery is overtaxed as it is and that instead of any prospects of relief, the position is likely to become worse.

Mr Briggins said that because of the coal shortage, people were making greater demands, on the electricity supplies. Moreover there is an Act which enforces the board to supply power to new residences that ate built in areas that are already reticulated. There was much building going on now, he said, and apart from the drain on materials which may have been available for the Wakatipu area, these new houses would create an even greater loading on the generators. Ail generators were overtaxed now, he said.

Cr McLean: I understand that water is going to waste at Wye Creek. Could that not be utilised ?

Mr Ellis: The existing materials cannot take any increase in pressure. It is impossible to get suitable pipes and machinery. Mr Ellis said that the Public Works Department were building a dam and installing generating machinery in the Fraser and Teviot Rivers so that power would be available for the Coal Creek scheme. The board was negotiating, he said, to get power from this source. However, this pow T er would be used to relieve the loading on existing plant. The position regarding supplies of materials was bad. Supplies were slow in coming to hand and arrived in dribs and drabs. To reticulate the Wakatipu area it would only be economical if a block were done? It was out of the question to do individual houses as material became available.

Rowe deplored the position. He said that holiday residences which were used for only short*periods each year, were being wired up. There were many farms in the Wakatipu area that could,carry much more stock but because they could not get electricity to operate their milking machines, it was out of the questioil. The country’s production was suffering and would continue- to do so until materials were put to better use, he said.

The board representatives said that as soon as they could see a possibility of power and materials that the Wakitipu area would be the first to be reticulated.