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Npower has become the latest energy supplier to cut gas prices, trimming them by 7% to save 2m customers about £50 ($74.70) a year. The firm, owned by Germany’s RWE, is the fourth of the ″big six″ to reduce prices for domestic gas customers who’ll now pay an average of £707 ($US1,057) a year. Only French firm EDF Energy and Spanish-owned have yet to move. ″We always aim to offer competitive prices to our customers and we have lowered our gas prices although our profits halved in 2009,″ Kevin Miles, chief executive of Npower retail said. ″The combined profit from supplying nearly 6.8m accounts and operating nine power stations was equivalent to just 9p (13¢) a day for each customer account.″ The company says its gas customers who pay by monthly direct debit should pay just £696 ($US1,041) a year, £24 ($US35.87) less than British Gas. German energy giant E.ON dropped its gas tariff by 6% yesterday for around 1.9m residential gas customers, saving around £42 ($US62.81) each a year. That follows last week’s decision by Scottish and Southern Energy, the UK's second largest energy supplier, to lower its prices by 4%, saving families £30 ($US44.87) a year. British Gas was first to reduce its bills a month ago, cutting its standard gas prices by an average 7%. The UK’s largest residential energy supplier said that 8m households would save £55 ($82.26) a year.




It looks like the wind is blowing strong these days in Texas. On Sunday February 28, it broke a wind power electricity generation record with 6,242MW on the ERCOT grid, and that record was broken again five days later on Friday March 5 with a 6,272MW peak and this is just for ERCOT, it doesn't include wind turbines on the "Panhandle" part of the state because they are connected to a different grid ~ so the real total for the state would be even higher. Texas has by far the most wind power capacity in the US. According to recent numbers by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), the lone star state has a wind energy generation capacity of 9,410MW, followed by Iowa with 3,870MW and California with 2,794MW.






Energy Minister Gerry Brownlee has rejected calls to regulate the installation of new ″smart meters″ in homes. He said he had agreed to the Electricity Commission's recommendation not to regulate the meters because the benefits would not outweigh the costs. Power companies including Meridian Energy, Genesis Energy and Contact Energy are installing smart meters in homes throughout the country. Retailers say the meters will be installed at about 80% of New Zealand's almost two million meter sites by the end of 2013. The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment and Grey Power have called for a moratorium on installation, saying power companies were rushing to install the meters to make money from customers who were previously undercharged. Meridian has confirmed 4500 Christchurch customers had been sent letters advising them their tariffs would rise after they had smart meters installed, as they had been undercharged previously. The new meters are also being installed without a home area network (HAN) smart chip that would allow them to communicate with other energy-efficient devices in homes, prompting commissioner Jan Wright to label them ″dumb meters″.

PLUS what's on today and what's in the daily newspaper along with other important overnight news.

The American Superconductor Corp. reports it has landed $10m from a Chinese company for electrical components for wind turbines. Under the deal, Devens-based AMSC will provide CSR Zhuzhou Electric Locomotive Research Institute Co. Ltd. with components for 1.65MW wind turbines designed by AMSC’s Windtec subsidiary. The Chinese company licensed the turbine technology in 2006 and has the rights to manufacture, use and sell AMSC’s system. CSR Zhuzhou Electric Locomotive Research Institute is based in Hunan province in China and is a subsidiary of manufacturing company China South Locomotive & Rolling Stock Corp. This is the third such order for AMSC this year. Last month, AMSC won a $70m initial order from Shenyang Blower Works (Group) Co. Ltd. for full wind turbine electrical control systems. In January, Chinese manufacturer XJ Group Corp. ordered 100 sets of wind turbine electrical components.