Big dry hits Mercury earnings again

Low rainfall into Lake Taupō has reduced Mercury's hydro generation. (Image: Getty)

Tue, 17 Aug 2021

A lack of rain in the North Island’s central plateau has hit electricity company Mercury’s earnings for the second year running as it paid high wholesale electricity prices from other providers to make up for the shortfall from its Waikato river hydro stations.Net profit was down 33% to $141 million in the year ended June 30 from $209m the previous year. An unplanned outage at its Kawerau geothermal station also affected earnings.The result is in stark contrast to the results announced yesterday by Contact Energy, whose central Nort...

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