KURATAU POWER SCHEME

Taupo Times, Volume II, Issue 85, 4 September 1953, Page 1

KURATAU POWER SCHEME

ANOTHER TAUPO HYDRO The King Country Electric Power Board has decided to proceed with a scheme to build a hydro-electric power station on the Kuratau River The site is some three miles below the bridge crossing the Kuratau River on the TaumarunuiTurangi State Highway, where the river enters a precipitous canyon in which the water level drops 100 feet and then descends over a direct fall of about 60 feet. By damming the canyon' it will be -possible to create very considerable storage and obtain an effective fall of over 200 feet. The Power Board's decision was based on a report made to it by Mr Lloyd Mandeno, of the firm of Messrs Mandeno, Lee and Brown; consulting engineers, by whom the proposed site has been located. The report mentions that the amounts paid by the Board to the Government for its supply of electric power have risen from £4,798 in 1949 to £13,684 ir^ 1953. The estimated cost for 1954, when the recently increased rates will be fully operative is £18,000, and Mr Mandeno estimates that the cost to the Board may have reached £25,000 per annum by the time a power station -can be established on the Kuratau. The Report states that the estimated annual cost of operation of the proposed station, with interest at the present rate of 4 per cent., would be £16,940 The report suggests the installation of two units of 2500 kilowatts each. Estimated cost of the scheme is £255,050, equivalent to £51 of capital expenditure per kilowatt, a favourable figure in these days. An arch dam of mass concrete will raise the water level to an elevation of 285 feet above Lake Taupo flooding the valley for about three miles up-stream. Water for power generation only will be brought down the river past the power house, which will be on the river bed below the steep andesite cliff. All surplus and flood waters will pass out of the present river course over a spillway cut through a ridge north of the river. It will descend some forty feet into a swamp 2000 feet northward, join a small tributary and rejoin the river bed about li miles below the dam. It is proposed to supply power to the Tokaanu-Turangi area if that area is included in the King Coun> try Power Board's district.