Meridian wins national grid scrap

Friday 8th June 2001

National grid operator Transpower has lost its $70 million High Court fight with generator Meridian Energy over pricing for using the Cook Strait cable.

Justice Robert Fisher found for defendant Meridian in the long-running dispute over the terms for the hydro-generator to be connected to the national grid.

Transpower claimed Meridian owed it $70 million in unpaid transmission charges as Meridian has been paying what it considered a "fair" price since the dispute blew up after ECNZ was split in April 1999.

Meridian managing director Keith Turner described the decision as significant for the whole industry.

But chairman Colin Maiden said Transpower was considering its legal options and there were good grounds for an appeal.

Meridian claimed the charges Transpower was imposing on it were three or four times what Transpower charged Contact for what Meridian described as "essentially the same service."

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