1 Apr 2011

Complaints lodged about power price spike

1:33 pm on 1 April 2011

Fourteen parties, including power companies and spot market users, have lodged claims with the Electricity Authority about a spike in electricity prices last Saturday.

A correction to wholesale prices is wanted after they soared to almost $20,000 per megawatt hour, following a six-hour planned maintenance shutdown on the national transmission grid in the upper North Island.

The authority has asked for more information from those who have complained and expects to hear back from them on 5 April.

In the meantime, it says it has had assurances from a number of participants that they have sufficient hedge agreements in place to manage a grid outage scheduled for near Hamilton on Saturday.