Tourism tops for KCE power sales

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 10, Issue 483, 27 April 1993, Page 3

Tourism tops for KCE power sales

The importance of the ski industry and other tourism activities to King Country Energy has been high-lighted by its annual statistics for the 1992-93 financial year. Forty-seven of King Country Energy 's top 80 customers are in the accommodation business, using nearly four million units. In a report to the April board meeting, King Country Energy general manager Peter Till said the board had added nearly two and a half gigawatts of load by focussing marketing activities on six of the top 50 consumers over the last four years. These include the Turoa Skifield, which had grown from nil consumption in 1989-90 to 1,353,000 units in 1992-

93. Taumarunui's Trust Bank Community Pool and a major green-house operation added a further 779,000 units that did not exist in 1989-90. Two other customers, a major accommodation business and a timber drying plant, boosted their consumption during the same period from 40,000 units in 1989-90 to 341,000 in 1992-93. Mr Till said the 'ephemeral nature' of most of these customers is cause for concem, relying as they do on a good ski-season. Use of electricity by prisons in the board's area totalled 2,024,000 units, while ski-clubs used 381,000 units. The top 80 customers (out of a board total of 12,000) yield $2.9 million - 23 percent of the board's total income.