KEY POINTS:
Cutting production at Comalco's Bluff aluminium smelter to save electricity is too simplistic a solution, the company says.
While the Government refuses to recognise that a power crisis is looming, the Cabinet this week endorsed plans for a television and radio electricity-savings campaign.
Environmental Defence Society executive director Gary Taylor said yesterday that the "answer to the dilemma" was to negotiate with Comalco - one of the country's highest electricity users - to take one of its potlines offline.
"They use a lot of hydro-electricity and that could be diverted into the grid and would probably see us through most contingencies," Mr Taylor said.
He favoured talking to the smelter before lowering lake levels below their usual minimum levels, a proposal the Government has already rejected.
But NZ Aluminium Smelters general manager Paul Hemburrow said yesterday that the smelter had seen the price signals and noted lake levels last month before embarking on its own power-saving strategies.
"It's very simplistic," Mr Hemburrow said of the suggestion to remove a potline from production.
"We've taken out a fair bit of our load, and we did that starting from May 2."
Savings of more than 10 per cent had already been made by cutting an "enormous" 66MW of power use - the equivalent of 600,000 homes reducing power by 10 per cent.
The smelter, with power supplier Meridian, had also offered "instantaneous load reserves" back into the market, which Mr Hemburrow said had "the direct impact of reducing consumption of water in the hydro lakes".
Potlines were not designed to be switched on and off, and operated at their "most energy and emissions-efficient" when running with a stable raw materials and electricity supply.
- NZPA
