A small new power station in South Canterbury will cost state-owned power generator Meridian Energy nearly $4 million.

The Commerce Commission has delivered a warning to two NZX-listed energy companies allegedly in cohorts to block out other bidders for a Nelson power company six years ago.

The decision was the last outstanding issue in the Commission’s electricity market investigation, published in May 2009.

In 2003, TrustPower Limited (NZX:TPW) acquired the Cobb hydroelectric power station (from NGC Holdings Limited) for $92.5 million.

It's the end of a legend that never got started, a legend that goes back to the Muldoon "Think Big" era.

The massive Marsden B Power station south of Whangarei has been sold without ever turning out a single watt of electricity.

Built as part of "Think Big" in the early 1970s, the oil-fired station was immediately mothballed largely because of the oil crisis of that decade. It was never fired up in anger.

Mighty River Power wound up acquiring the station as part of the electricity reforms in 1999.