Piriaka Power Station facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Piriaka Power Station |
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 Location of Piriaka Power Station in New Zealand
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| Country | New Zealand |
| Location | Manawatū-Whanganui |
| Coordinates | 38°55′3.0″S 175°20′26.9″E / 38.917500°S 175.340806°E (For the weir) |
| Purpose | Power |
| Status | Operational |
| Construction began | 1922 |
| Opening date | 21 March 1924 |
| Owner(s) | Taumarunui Borough Council (1924–1989) King Country Electric Power Board (1989–1993) King Country Energy (1993– ) |
| Operator(s) | King Country Energy |
| Dam and spillways | |
| Type of dam | Weir |
| Impounds | Whanganui River |
| Height (foundation) | 1 metre |
| Power station | |
| Name | Piriaka Power Station |
| Coordinates | 38°54′41.9″S 175°20′35.2″E / 38.911639°S 175.343111°E |
| Operator(s) | King Country Energy |
| Commission date | 1924 |
| Type | Run of the River |
| Hydraulic head | 8.2 metres |
| Turbines | Three |
| Installed capacity | 1.3 MW (1,700 hp) |
| Annual generation | 7 GWh (25 TJ) |
| Website Piriaka Power Station |
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The Piriaka power station is a hydroelectric power facility in Manawatū-Whanganui in New Zealand which draws water from behind a weir on the Whanganui River near Piriaka and diverts it through a canal and penstock to the Piriaka Power Station, which is located approximately 9 km (6 miles) southeast of the town of Taumarunui, via SH4. The power station discharges back into the Whanganui River.
Contents
History
Construction
An access road was built to the construction site, where a simple construction camp of four two-man huts together with a workshop and a building to store equipment was established. The workers paid rent of two shillings a week to stay in a hut. Others lived in tents. Construction began on the headworks, canal, penstock and power house and the distribution network under the supervision of construction engineer H. Langdon.
As an indication of how many men were employed to build the power station an average of 21.5 men were employed on-site during February 1923.
On 14 March 1924, with electricity from Piriaka becoming available the council decided that the gas works should be shut down by the end of the month. By this time there were only 49 customers receiving a gas supply.
As work continued on the power station the first customers were being signed up, transmission lines were being constructed, street lighting installed and buildings wired to accept electricity. By January 1925 approximately 210 buildings had been wired.
From the power station a 3.3 kV overhead transmission line using No.8 wire was built to supply the village of Piriaka while a second 3.3 kV line was built using7/14 wire via Manunui to Taumarunui.
Commissioning
By February 1924 construction had reached the point that commissioning tests could be undertaken. By 4 March 1926 the testing had been completed allowing the main street of Taumarunui to be lit by 22 lamps, while 80 smaller lamps were energised in other streets. The shops in the business area were also lit up with a total of 54 consumers receiving a supply.
The power station was commissioned with two Boving & Co 300 hp vertical Francis turbines which were each directly coupled to a General Electric 250 KVA, 212 kW generator to give a total station output of 425 kW at 3.3 kV. The output of the generators connected to British Thomson-Houston switchgear.
To manage their new power station and reticulation system the borough council created the Taumarunui electricity department with a permanent staff of H. F. (Henry) McLeod, electrical engineer on a yearly salary of £400; W. Milne, power station engineer on a yearly salary of £325; R.S. Uren, lineman on yearly salary of £250 and Crawford McHenry as assistant lineman on wages of £4 per week. Henry McLeod was to serve as an electrical engineer until his retirement in July 1949.
The power scheme had cost £50,000 to build and taken 18 months to complete. The power scheme was officially opened on 21 March 1924 by Prime Minister William Massey first at the power station at 2pm and then following dinner there was a separate evening ceremony in Hakiaka Street in Taumarunui when the street lights were switched on.
By August 1925 the uptake of electricity was such that Henry McLeod was recommending that more capacity be installed at Piriaka and that the 3.3 kV transmission voltage be increased to 11 kW. While no more capacity was added at Piriaka the borough council commenced a project in the later half of 1925 to upgrade the transmission voltage to 11 kV. This involved installing a 500 kVA transformer to step up the voltage at Piriaka, replacing the insulators on the 5½ miles (8.85 km) of transmission lines and installing three step down transformers at various locations in the network.
By the 1927 financial year the connected load had increased to 440 kW during the day and 245 kW at night. In that same 12-month period the station generated 927,126 GWh, but the electricity department's metering could only account for 704,842 GWh.
Connection to the national electricity system
With it unable to meet the demand for more electricity the borough council after investigating other options such as installing a diesel generator at Piriaka reached an agreement with the government in 1938 to connect the local system to the national electricity system via a new transmission line. The connection to the bulk supply entered service on 2 April 1939. As a part of the agreement to take a bulk supply from the government it had been agreed that Piriaka would only be allowed to remain in service as a pumping station for the borough's water supply system. As a result, on 11 October 1939 Piriaka creased generating.
In May 1940 to help with the war effort and the demand for electricity from the new war-related industries Piriaka was returned to service, with the government requesting that it run at its maximum output, 24 hours a day. A shortage of staff meant that the PWD had to help repair the weir and tailrace, while the Auckland Electric Power Board loaned an operator to help run the power station.
A severe flood on 14 December 1958 damaged the weir, headworks and washed away approximately 2 chains (40 metres) of the canal's concrete lining which reduced the station head, allowing only one of its two generating units being able to remain in service. Even then there were regular stoppages to clear blocked intake screens. The repairs to the power scheme cost £14,000.
Upgrading
In the 1960s the power station's existing Turell voltage regulator was replaced by an ASEA solid state voltage regular which meant that the station's voltage did not now require constant attention, allowing the number of operators at the station to reduced from four (on a 24-hour shift) to two people.
By the late 1960s, Piriaka had been reduced to a single 300 kW generating unit. Mandeno Chitty & Bell were hired to design and oversee increasing the station's output. As a result, a modified Kaplan turbine driving a 700 kW generator was installed in February 1971 in a separate building. However, the new generating unit gave problems from the time it entered service. It was eventually determined that it had been installed a metre higher than it should have been installed. This led to compensation being paid to the Taumarunui Borough Council which was more than the cost of the new generating unit. Even as late as 1978 the new generating unit was still giving problems with cavitation of the turbine blades and leaking bearing seals, both issues eventually being resolved.
The commissioning in 1972 of the Western Diversion of the Tongariro power scheme resulted in the diversion of water from eight tributaries of the upper Whanganui River. By June 1973 so significant was the diversion of waters that it was impacting on the operation of Piriaka. By the end of the year, the NZED was playing compensation to the borough council, the amount depending upon weather conditions and the amount of water they were taking. The lower river flows attracted the attention of other parties which resulted in hearings by Rangitikei – Wanganui Catchment Board in 1982 with 17 submissions and again in 1988 with 1,250 submissions being received. Unhappy with the tribunal's ruling that the NZED and its successor, the Electricity Corporation of New Zealand (ECNZ), should return river flows to full into summer and half in winter and also continue to pay compensation they appealed the decision. By September 1989 a total of NZ$510,00 had been paid to date to the borough council for loss of generation at Piriaka.
In late 1978 a flood blocked the intake gates with mud and the mistake was made to allow the canal to drain through the generating units, rather than keeping it full of water. With nothing to push back against it, the pressure from the saturated ground beside canal caused the canal walls to collapse inwards. It took three months to repair the damage and return the power station to service.
In response to the passing of the 1987 Empowering Act, which opened the electricity supply industry to market forces discussion began between the Taumarunui Borough Council and the King Country Electric Power Board. As a result, the borough council in 1989 sold its electricity assets (including Piriaka) for NZ$750,000 to the power board.
In response to the 1992 Energy Companies Act, the King Country Electric Power Board on 1 July 1993 transitioned to a public company King Country Energy Ltd, which took over ownership of Piriaka.
In the early 1990s, a fire in the windings of the generating unit G1 resulted in it being out of service for 2½ months.
Design
The scheme was originally designed with provision to allow the mechanical output to be increased from 600 hp (447 kW) to 1,800 hp (1,342 kW).
Three one-metre-high concrete weirs, approximately 200 mm thick connecting natural islands on the Whanganui River impound water in a small headpond. From here water is diverted to control gates and then via a 232-metre-long (761 ft) concrete-lined canal to a forebay (fitted with screens) from which it flows through a buried 2.74-metre-diameter (9.0 ft) by 245-metre-long (804 ft) concrete penstock to a concrete surge chamber located beside the two powerhouses, from which water passes via penstocks to the turbines.
There are two powerhouses, the original 1924 building which houses two vertical Francis turbines, each powering a 0.25 MW generating unit, designated G2 and G3. In a separate adjacent building which was commissioned in 1971 is located generating unit G1 which consists of a horizontal Kaplan turbine driving a 1 MW synchronous generator. From each building, separate tailraces discharge the water back into the Whanganui River.
The scheme has a head of 8.2 metres. Because of the limited storage capacity in the headpond and canal the scheme is essentially run-of-river.
The power station has a total output of 1.3 MW and a mean output of 7 GWh per year.
At the power station the voltage is stepped up to 11 kV for transmission.
The power station is embedded within The Lines Company network behind Transpower's Hangitaki Substation, but can also be switched within The Lines Company network to support Transpower's Whakamaru substation on a limited supply basis.
Operation
Operation of the power station is covered by the requirements of three resource consents which expire in December 2030.
As the power station is located in an area covered in pumice, the intake to the power station required regular maintenance in its early days to remove the pumice which had become dislodged and then floats down the river to build up behind the weir and block the intake.
