Can Go Ahead

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 69, 13 June 1927, Page 12

Can Go Ahead

ELECTRIC-POWER NEEDS

WAITEMATA DISCUSSION The delay at Arapuni will not hamper the development of the Waitemata Power Board. As the result of the conference at Hamilton last week betwee.n the Miinster of Public Works, the Chief Electrical Engineer and those power authorities drawing current from Horahora, the chairman of the board, Mr. W. J. Hayden, gave an assurance to-day that all needs would be met. Reporting on the conference at Hamilton, Mr. Hayden stated that it had been shown that plant in the district was available to supply 42,000 kilowatts as against the peak load of 37.000 or 38,000 kilowatts. There would be enough power for. the next 18 months. The Government had given an assurance that needs would be met. He could recommend the board to go ahead with development assured of assistance. That undertaking had been given. The agreement with the Public Works Department would shortly come before it, and he suggested that the board should ratify it. The Government had four alternatives. To expedite Arapuni was not possible. The second alternative was to link Arapuni and Waikaremoana, but the line had not been surveyed and the Minister of Public Works had stated that he would prefer to put in more plant. In the third place the Government could put in auxiliary plant to cover the shortage. What the Government would do, stated the chairman, would depend on what the Minister of Finance could allow for expenditure immediately. Mr. J. Mackie suggested that the requirements of the Waitemata Power Board had been under-estimated. Mr. G. Trevithick: We have been well spanked before for not asking for enough. We don’t want to be spanked again. The chairman stated that the board would have a definite agreement from the Minister of Public Works and the Chief Electrical Engineer that the deficiency would be supplied even with the proposed trolly buses running.