Big rain in Alps, but more needed

11.45am

Heavy rain has fallen in the South Island in the past 24 hours, dumping much-needed water in hydro lakes.

However, the downpour was not enough to postpone the need to save power, electricity company Meridian Energy said.

"It's welcome, but it's only bought us a few days, a week at the most," spokesman Alan Seay told NZPA today.

Several sustained periods of rain would be needed to allay current concerns over low hydro lake levels, Mr Seay said.

Several lakes used by Meridian to generate power had received falls of more than 100mm rain, he said.

The MetService said heavy rain had fallen on both sides of the main divide. Falls had ranged between 100mm at Lake Ohau to 400mm-450mm inland from Hokitika.

"There's been a good drop of rain throughout the area," forecaster Geoff Sanders told NZPA.

April weather figures released yesterday by the National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa) said it was generally a sunny and dry month.

"Extremely low rainfall, about 33 per cent of average, occurred in most of the South Island West Coast and some alpine areas," Niwa said in a statement.

Rainfall was less than 50 per cent of average, in most other western regions.

More significant rain was forecast for the area for Saturday evening, Mr Sanders said.

Earlier today the co-ordinator of the Winter 2003 Taskforce said households were beginning to heed the power conservation message but business needed to try harder to save electricity.

The Government has asked households and businesses to cut electricity usage by 10 per cent, as low hydro lake levels have diminished power generation capacity.

On Wednesday, New Zealanders saved just over 3 per cent.

"I'd like to see us going up more quickly, but we always knew it would take a little bit of time," Patrick Strange told National Radio today.

"It's patchy at the moment -- I'm sure residents are contributing more than business at the moment. We're probably seeing numbers greater than three from residents and less from business: that's usual.

"There's certainly less lighting on in the major city centres now, but I can still look out at Auckland and see buildings ablaze."

In some parts of the country, power companies have started switching off hot water cylinders in a bid to cut power usage.

Yesterday, Energy Minister Pete Hodgson told Parliament those switch-offs would initially be for short periods but the next step could be 18-hour cuts.

"I accept that we may well be in serious difficulty and that we may end up with some social and economic disruption if we are not able to save sufficiently now," he said.

"That is why the Government has asked the state sector to show leadership with 15 per cent savings and New Zealanders as a whole 10 per cent."

"It's got to be everybody," Dr Strange said today.

"There's been a lot of publicity about water heating cuts, but let's remember residents only use a third of our power. Perhaps three-quarters of them have electric hot water cylinders that can be cut, so let's not think that will be a panacea. We have to get the savings."

The taskforce launches an advertising campaign this weekend to push the power conservation message.

- NZPA