Vector has sold its New Zealand gas business to global utilities investment fund First State.

The way electricity lines companies charge for their services is all wrong and needs to change if we are to take advantage of emerging technologies, the Electricity Authority says.

Tauranga-based Trustpower will pay $5 a share in cash in a full takeover offer for King Country Energy, provided it gets at least 70.2 percent of the company.

Two years on, money ordered paid in 90 days is being drip-fed.

An international conglomerate owed $27.5 million by Solid Energy has issued a High Court challenge to the arrangement which the state-owned mining company's creditors voted through last....

Sixty-five staff to axed as operator admits there is no chance whatsover of finding a buyer for Waikato mine that's cost about $500,000 a month to keep open.

New Zealand Steel's blue collar workforce has agreed to forego annual bonus payments during unprofitable years.

The recent rally in Z shares convinced Infratil and the Super Fund that it was time to sell.

Battery frenemies Telsa, Panasonic poised for Solar power fight in Europe.

Z Energy is warning it's facing a potential multi-million dollar bill from NZ Customs - backdated to 1986.

Energy trust would be more loveable if its annual payout wasn't used to benefit individuals ... or to promote re-election of trustees, writes Brian Rudman.

Mighty River Power has become the latest electricity generator-retailer to announce a special dividend in the current earnings season.

Hundreds of thousands of Auckland households can expect an increased dividend payment of $345 in late September from the community trust that owns most of Vector.

Auckland households are set to get a bigger dividend payout from Vector next month.

Mighty River will spring another 2.5 cents per share special dividend for shareholders, having already given 5c in December.

Solid Energy creditors yesterday voted to retain the company's existing administrators and not to set up a creditors' committee.

Meridian Energy shares closed up almost 3 per cent yesterday after the company delivered better-than-expected earnings and foreshadowed a long-term return of capital to shareholders.

Our biggest power generator, Meridian Energy, says power prices are likely to stay flat in the coming year.

Contact Energy chief executive Dennis Barnes says the firm now has the chance to steer its own course.

It's been a tough year for Contact Energy, with profits falling 43 per cent. But CEO Dennis Barnes says improvements are expected across all parts of the business next year.

Of the 33 employees based at the site, 26 roles will be disestablished and seven employees will moved within the company.

Contact Energy's decision to close its Otahuhu power station is the latest in an industry-wide move away from gas.

Two major factors - falling international coal prices and a $320 million mountain of debt - proved the undoing of state-owned coal company Solid Energy.

Solid Energy acting chairman Andy Coupe admitted it was "unlikely" that any sale, or sales, would cover its outstanding debt.

Genesis Energy announced its last two coal-burning electricity generators at Huntly Power Station will be shut down.

Origin Energy will book a A$270m impairment from selling out of Contact Energy.