Cold weather pushes up electricity prices

Wholesale electricity prices rose last week as cold weather pushed up demand.

Storage in hydro lakes, which provide up to 70 per cent of the country's power supply, slipped slightly last week to 85 per cent of normal yesterday -- the same level as a month ago.

The seven-day rolling average price reached 8.09c a kilowatt hour yesterday, up 1c on a week earlier, figures out today from electricity market administrator M-co show.

The rolling average was the highest since May 20 when it hit 8.13c.

At the North Island reference point of Haywards in the Hutt Valley the price got up to 8.98c on Wednesday, before easing to 6.8c yesterday to be lower than the 7.02c of a week earlier.

Demand was above levels of a week earlier between Tuesday and Thursday, but dropped below previous week levels from Friday.

Inflows into hydro lakes were below average from Tuesday, falling to 73 per cent of average on Wednesday.

- NZPA