Energy customers advised to watch lake levels

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 11, Issue 509, 26 October 1993, Page 11

Energy customers advised to watch lake levels

Keep an eye on the level of Lake Pukaki in the South Island - that's the advice from King Country Energy as it seeks to minimise the cost of its electricity purchases from ECNZ. General manager Peter Till saidKing Country Energy has taken to buying most of its electricity on the spot market in a calculated bid to lower its overall energy purchase costs. The company generates about a third of its own requirements at its Kuratau and Piriaka power stations and buys the rest from ECNZ. "By managing our peak leads better, we can make significant savings on our overall electricity purchases.

"This means using our ripple control plant on occasion to keep our peak load down. It does mean occasional water heating cuts.These should not generally be noticed by our customers," Mr Till said, "but they benefit in the long run from lower tariffs overall". The company is investing nearly $2 million in new ripple control equipment to give it better control in this area. The old system is prone to failure - as happened in Taumarunui recently. "We apologise to all those who were affected in this way," Mr Till says. "We are working as fast as cashflow allows to renew the whole system, which should make such problems a thing of the past."