88 Million Bucks Worth Of Power!

Written by Seuamuli Des Bentin
Tuesday, 27 November 2007
Years ago when I was a lot more stupid than I am now, there was no electricity to our house or our street but I did not have any experience of things electrical or electronic then to wish for it. The fact that I should have been at pre-school, which was non-existent at the time, would probably account for my claim to being a lot less stupid now, but age or stupidity were not at all responsible for there being no electricity to our street or house. There just wasn’t that much of the stuff to go around. All these years later, there still isn’t! There are those no doubt who would wonder how I knew that I was a lot less stupid now than when I was at school for example. That’s an easy one. I no longer defend an opinion by just saying “Because!” and would have most probably lived and experienced whatever prompted me to express an opinion. It’s just impossible not to get a lot less stupid with each passing year as one gets older. Of course there could be exceptions! But it really isn’t that important how much cleverer we think we are now compared to back then. It is when other people such as politicians and those in positions of power think that we are still as stupid now as we were just before the last general elections that should be of concern. If you’re interested, there’s a simple test to check your Stupid Points standing in the national ranking system. Ask yourself this question? Do you believe that God appointed all leaders and we must follow whatever these leaders tell us to do without question? Think carefully about your answer because my decision to either get into politics or not depends on it. Who wouldn’t want such absolute unquestioned power? But I really wanted to write about a different kind of power today. The kind that we usually take for granted to be there at the tip of your grubby forefinger when you hit the switch to power on any of a dizzying array of power hungry electrical and electronic appliances, tools and latest coolest simply-die-without-it gizmo. My Stupid Points dropped dramatically when our house got electricity. I was taught a new skill in switching the lights on and off was told that I could get electrocuted and killed if I touched any of a hundred different parts of the wiring and meter board. It was a warning I heeded. When I became a serious collector of all things electrical and electronic that every modern household could not function without, I was also in the business of making electricity in Aotearoa New Zealand. It was only after I came back here that I realized how enormous the power stations were where I had worked. And size does matter. When the generator at the Alaoa Hydro power station is struggling to squeeze out 1500kiloWatts during the evening peak demand period, you miss the 10,000kiloWatts the operator at Twizel Control can get from any of four power stations under his control at any instant. But size is relative too. Big hydro power stations need big amounts of water. You can’t have one without the other. The amount of water dictates the size of the power station. All our hydro stations are maxed out. Unless they find a more efficient generator that could produce more power from the same amount of water. The Rural Electrification project took electricity to a huge portion of the population. Whether you see it as vote buying or inevitable modernization and progress, the additional load and demand growth was not matched by a planned and progressive increase in production. There might be enough power produced to keep every household and business in electricity even during the peak demand times, but when there is a fault at any one of the hydro power stations or diesel generators requiring it to be shut down, the remaining stations and generators cannot take up the extra load and dump it causing a complete black out. We had a few of those last week. The Electric Power Corporation reportedly has been given 88 million bucks to do something about the power supply crisis. It isn’t much but is better than a kick in the head! Consultant fees will take a healthy bite out of it, costly management decisions like the case of the Auto-reclosers are inevitable in any “big” contract and project and will take their share, before we will see any positive results from this loan. How soon can that be? Eight years ago, power surges and brown outs caused two of my computers to curl up and die. Last week, the power supply failure on Monday night killed my security system. I got another computer and had a replacement control box for my security system, but after eight years, who is not getting less stupid with age? I am quite positive that I am not as stupid as I was eight years ago, but I am getting fed up really. Would 88 million dollars – less the Consultant and cock-up costs - help the EPC get their act together? Have a nice one folks! Comments (0) Subscribe to this comment's feed Write comment Name Email Title Comment

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