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The Cyclopedia of New Zealand [Otago & Southland Provincial Districts]
Street Lighting
Street Lighting.
In 1875, as from the 1st of January, 1876, the Council acquired the City Gas Works, erected by the Dunedin Gas and Coke Company, Ltd., together with all mains, services and plant. Since that time the corporation has manufactured and supplied gas for the city. Five years after acquiring the gas works, the Council undertook to supply the borough of North-East Valley with gas, and in 1886 the borough of South Dunedin, and both undertakings have been satisfactorily carried out. The Dunedin Corporation Gas Works, which are situated at South Dunedin, were purchased at a cost of about £50,000, but this has been increased by subsequent outlay to £130,000. Including the pipes through the suburban boroughs, there are thirty-five miles of mains laid from these works. The land on which the Gas Works are erected consists of seven acres of freehold, and rather more than an acre of leaschold. Two five-horse power beam steam engines and two seven-horse power boilers are used alternately, for working the “exhaust” in connection with the plant. In the retort house there are seven “through” benches, with seventy retorts for making gas, while the purifying house contains four purifiers, each twenty feet square. The meter and valve room contains a 30,000 per hour meter, with inlet and outlet valves there being three governors in the governor house for regulating the pressure of gas in town. The horizontal condenser consists of sixteen tiens of nine-inch pipes on an ornamental base. There is a very complete laboratory, the plant including appliances for testing the five hundredth part of a ton on Evans's page 96 photometer, two illuminating power meters, a Lux special balance, and generally everything necessary for the works. The gasholders, two in number, have capacities respectively of 148,000 and 180,000 feet. There are 3,033 ordinary lighting consumers, and 848 special consumers of gas in the city and suburbs; also 586 street lamps, besides fifteen lamps in North-East Valley and twenty-two in South Dunedin.