POWER FROM SOUNDS

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 992, 7 June 1930, Page 6

POWER FROM SOUNDS

CONCESSION GRANTED TO COMPANY LAKE MANAPOURI SCHEME From Our Resident Reporter WELLINGTON, Today. By an Order-in-Council, a concession has been granted to the New Zealand Sounds Hydro-electric Concessions, Ltd., to use the waters of Lake Manapouri and the other resources of the Sounds country for the purpose of generating electric power. The engineering plan provides for a tunnel from Lake Manapouri to the sea level at Deep Cove or Smith Sound, where a generating station will be constructed. The licence will permit the utilisation of water to the maximum of 50,000-h.p. from certain waters discharging into Deep Cove and Smith Sound. Water may be taken to the extent of 5,000 cubic feet a second from Lake Manapouri, subject to the limitation that the lake level shall never be permitted t:o bo lowered below 10 feet of its present level. The licencees have deposited £SOO with the Public Trustee as a guarantee that they will prepare plans for the headworks, darn, pipeline, and generating station. There is a guarantee clause under which the concession, unless vigorously utilised, will be forfeited in January, 1933. This clause requires that a company be formed by January, 1932, with a capital not less than the estimated cost of a 50,000-h.p. scheme, and if the licencee has not by January, 1933, developed electrical energy to the extent of 25,000 kilowatts, or spent at least £IOO,OOO on the authorised works, the concession shall be forfeited.

The time limit for the exploitation of the Manapouri scheme is January, 1941.