CHEAP ELECTRICITY.

Taranaki Daily News, 27 April 1921, Page 6

CHEAP ELECTRICITY.

FACTOR IN DEVELOPMENT. WHAT IT HAS DONE FOR SHANGHAI. Very valuable lessons for all interested in the supply of electricity to the public by municipal enterprise are presented by the extraordinary development of municipal electricity in‘Shanghai during the last ten years or so. It is some indication -tfr the possibilities which lie before. Wellington should conditions for cheap power from the Mangahao by hydroelectric plant and the proposed Evans' Bay generating station prove favorable The supply at Shanghai was originally, as at Wellington, in the hands of a private company, but the local municipal council" purchased the undertaking at an earlier stage —in 1896, to be precise. The plant also was very similar, a variety of small sets with reciprocating engines of the la«t century. In 1901 the total capacity of the plant was only 550 kilowatt. By 1910 it had grown to a maximum of 3200 k.w., with an annual output of 6,834,156 units, and a new central station was commenced. This was of a more efficient and economical character —an improve! ent such as may be expected from the Evans Bay installation, when it is built. At the end of 1914 the new station contained about 14,000 k.w. of steam turbine plant. The output in 1915 was no less than 50,014,128 units, and, as they had continued to increase, further plant was ordered. In 1917 the load amounted to 21,000 k.w., and in that year orders were placed for plant with a capacity of 36,000 k.w., and in 1920 a further 40,000 k.w. was ordered, as the increase in load still continued. The output in 1920 was 102,622,803 units, or nearly seven times what it was ten years earlier.

What has accounted for much of this marvellous development of municipal electricity is the growth of the textile industry, which promises to make Shanghai the Manchester of the East., At the end of 1919 textile mills using nearly 20,000 h.p., and outZ'of the 100 million units sold in that year, nearly 80 per cent, were for power purposes. At Shanghai the textile mills run night and day, and this has a very important bearing on the cost of current, because it ensures a good load factor—or the ration of the average load to the maximum or peak load. Thus, the load factor at Shanghai is 42.39 per cent., as compared with an average in Wellington and most European citiai of under 30 per cent. This high load factor enables lower prices to be charged for power and lighting.' The lessons in Wellington are that cheap electricity tend always to stimulate the demand, and a good load factor enables the current to be supplied at a cheaper rate. Thus the hydro-electric supply should be a powerful stimulus to industry. The experience of Shanghai, as reported in the technical journal Beama, is that the knowledge that ample power was available at reasonable rates in the Shanghai district has been a very potent factor in securing the establishment of factories and industries in the district. The advantage of an up-to-date and progressive electrical supply has given Shanghai a lead industrially over all other cities in China.