Pupu Hydro Society turns 30
Pupu Hydro stalwarts, from left, Paul Lenz, Teri Goodall, Chubb Wood, Roger Price, John Wells and Paul Sangster. Photo: Gerard Hindmarsh.
Stalwarts and past supporters of the Pupu Hydro Society can feel proud that it goes into its 30th year with all major works now ticked off.
Over the years, around 50 to 60 locals have contributed their time to the society and the little hydroelectric scheme hidden at the end of the Pupu Valley Road, and there have been endless local donations of money and equipment. Though dilapidated when the society took them over, the last remaining wall and floor sections of the 1.7km-long water race have now been concreted, as has the intake weir at Campbell Creek and a new 2.8km-long access road.
Society president and electrical engineer Teri Goodall said that until recently, virtually all the money the station made had been poured into major works like the raceway and access road.
“Finishing these core projects has been a big milestone for us. We’ve paid back all the guarantors and the powerhouse is making a profit. There isn’t another community-owned-and-operated power station of this size in New Zealand. The Pupu Hydro is unique.”
And beneficial too. Members receive wages and honoraria for their work, but the incorporated society also distributes thousands of dollars of power profits to local schools, the GB Community Hospital, Joan Whiting Rest Home and sporting groups, just to name a few.
The restoration of the Pupu Hydro infrastructure has provided another bonus for the district: the cliff-hugging Pupu Walkway, now Golden Bay’s single most popular day walk. The track, which in part follows the water race that feeds the power station from Campbell Creek, was constructed to the highest safety standards by society workers so they could maintain the flow of water. Teri says most people who visit now come to do the walkway. “They don’t even bother diverting to the powerhouse to have a look through the viewing window. It makes us realise how important the walk has become. It’s a real asset.”
Today, around six key individuals today keep the Pupu Hydro running. Their responsibilities include being rostered on call should power generation stop at any time of the night or day. Reliably maintained, the Pupu’s big ASEA turbine generator now only stops spinning once a year, when it is shut down for maintenance. Its 200-250Kw output is sold to the national grid at the “spot price”, which changes every half hour.
Explains society member Paul Lenz, who holds down an electrical engineer’s day job at the Fonterra factory in Takaka: “How much we get depends on demand, along with how full the lakes are. Sometimes we get nothing for it, but other times it can reach 70 or even 80 cents a unit, which is way more than domestic consumers buy it for. It averages out at a modest profit.”
As it is an incorporated society, all profits made must be either ploughed back into maintaining the plant, paid out as wages, or distributed to the community.
Back in 1928, experts in the Electricity Department warned against building the Pupu Hydro, saying it would not be economical. It was only the determination of HR Climie, an electrical engineer with the Golden Bay Power Board, that enabled its construction. The Tasman Electric Power Board later took the station over and ran it until it broke down, in around 1980. Credit for initiating the restoration of the little power station goes to the late Jim Baird, an engineer of Clifton, and then a GB County Councillor. Teri Goodall can still recall the original phone call from Jim, saying that the power station was being sold off as scrap. “He excitedly suggested we get together and restore it instead. I thought at the time that would be a huge amount of work, but I never quite realised how much that would be.”
Jim, Teri Goodall and Chub Wood called the first meeting at the Globe Hotel on 5 Nov 1981, and the Pupu Hydro Society was born.
The plant’s closure by the Tasman Electric Power Board in 1981 after 53 years of generation had been the hydro equivalent of a “meltdown” within the huge stationary copper winding of the ASEA generator. Despite nearly every expert saying resurrection was just a pipe dream, Jim and his supporters managed to raise $36,000, more than half of that from Pupu resident Hilda Campbell, daughter of gold miner Charles Campbell, who had built the first Pupu water race. More funds came from supportive local “debenture holders”, who each put in $100, but because the experts said the little hydro would never be profitable, no bank would lend the society anything. Key supporters had little choice but to put their money where their mouths were and mortgage their own houses to fund the project, which cost over $300,000 in the first few years alone.
The Swedish company that had made the original 1928 generator couldn’t believe it when the newly incorporated society put in an order for a new stator pack and windings. The company dug out the old specifications and promptly made new ones, delivering them to Auckland free of charge.
Notable features of today’s Pupu power scheme are not only its use of the existing water race but how the water enters the penstocks 90 metres above the station and is directed down to the turbine by steel pipe. These penstocks were fully restored and mechanised by the society around 25 years ago.
“It’s been an amazing journey for us all,” says Teri. “So many people have been involved. In those early days we’d hire all sorts of tradesmen and no one would send us a bill. We’d only have to ask around town for a truck or a load of something and it’d come free of charge. The community helped us get the hydro going again, and now we have something to be all rightly proud of, our own locally owned electricity generating plant.”
Gerard Hindmarsh
