GROWTH OF CITY’S POWER SUPPLY

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 150, 15 September 1927, Page 13

GROWTH OF CITY’S POWER SUPPLY

ELECTRICITY SCHEME ten per CENT. PROFIT MADE I ELECTRICITY came to Auckland J as a community enterprise in when the City Council bought a small private plant. Xx; 1912 there were BSO consumers, and this total grew slowly to 2,123 in 4,013 in 19.20, and then rapidly to ]6,342 in 1924. At the end of th s •rea.’ it is expected to be 45,000 or **These facts were given by Mr. R. 11. Bartley, general manager of the Auckland Electric-Power Board, in an adjretts at the Chamber of Commerce luncheon to-day. Ic. 1920, he said, the plant capacity amounted to 5, SOO k.w., and this had been added to year by year until it n-ocld soon be 37,200 k.w. The steam plant would prove a good insurance aga.nst interruptions in the Arapuni supply* which wc u 1 d not be available, in Mr. Bartley’s opinion, until the end a f 3929 or early in 1930. The cost of changing over to water power would amount to £250,000 Analysing the position of the Power B<Jard, in the ligh: of a limited liability company, Mr. Bartley gave the following figures of March 31:—Gross profit from year’s work!ng, £281,424; written off for depreciation and re Server, £50,280. leaving a true net profit of £231,144* This represented a return of 30.16 per cent, on the capital invested. As the board’s operations wer3 conducted on debenture capital, the profit was applied to the payment of interest and si iking fund, which represented 7.40 per cent, of the total loans raised, thus leaving a balance to ,# carried forward of an amount reprinting 2.7* per cent, of the figure.