KCE dam at mercy of weather

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 9, Issue 432, 14 April 1992, Page 6

KCE dam at mercy of weather

Nearly four and a half million units were generated by King Country Energy's Kuratau Power Station in its best ever month, compared with only 245,400 units in its worst ever month. The record high was in August last year, while the record low wias in March 1985, while generation from Kuratau in February was 1.65 million units, up 56 per cent on the previous February figure of 1.06 million units. The difference was also large at the board's second power station at Piriaka, where 709,485 units were generated in July 1990, compared with only 103,320 units in December 1978. That shows the huge difference that climatic conditions have on King Country Energy's ability to generate, the March board meeting was told, with resultant effects on board finances. At the board's average unit sale rate of seven cents, the record high month would have provided a gross return of $302,855 while the record low month would have returned only $17,178 - a difference odf more than a quarter of a

million dollars. The figures were taken out after board members queried the appropriateness of using reserves to cover shortfalls, saying that tariffs should be structured to cover the board's annual operating costs and provide annual profits. General manager Peter Till said last month there was no way King Country Energy could predict what generation levels would be and the present policy was to put windfall profits from good generation years into reserves to cover the bad years. Director Kit Wilson asked whether the poor month's figures reflected a whole month's availability, or whether there was any downturn for repairs on maintenance included, and was told the lows represented true operational months. Mr Till said normally generation fluctuations did not impact too severely on the financial side because when water levels were low the stations would only generate when bulk power prices were at their highest. "If we've got a lot of water we run all the time."