Close watch on hydro lakes

By Phil Boeyen, ShareChat Business News Editor

Energy Minister, Pete Hodgson, says latest information shows storage in the country's hydro lakes has risen to 73% of their seasonal average, up from 69% last week.

However Lakes Pukaki and Tekapo in the central South Island remain close to their minimum levels, with Tekapo at 47% capacity and Pukaki at 50%.

Together the lakes account for 60% of New Zealand's national hydro storage, feeding the power stations in the Waitaki system.

"Storage and inflows remain notably below average for this time of year and continued improvement will be necessary to bring further downward pressure on wholesale prices, " says Mr Hodgson.

Wholesale electricity prices have fallen from their peak of around 23 cents per kilowatt hour 11 June to around 17cents.

On energy, the Natural Gas (NZSE: NCH) electricity retail subsidiary, put up its retail prices a few weeks ago to try to stem losses from the increased wholesale rates but promised to drop its charges once wholesale prices fall to acceptable levels.

Comments from our readers

No comments yet

Add your comment:

Your name:
Your email:	Not displayed to the public
Comment:
Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved.

Anti-spam verification:

Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process.

Printable version

Related News

Genesis Power cranks out bumper profit
US visitor numbers leap 38% in January
Tourism ratings get megabuck boost
Business watchdog ready for busy year
State power profits below budget
TrustPower weathers bad winter
Minimal debt impact from airline recap
Export prices weather uncertainty
Figures show tourism was booming
Contact coughs up $12M to NGC