French electricity giant EDF said on Wednesday that it had raised 2.0 billion euros (2.5 billion dollars) through an oversubscribed bond issue to help fund the group which is in the process of buying British nuclear power generators.

French electricity giant EDF said on Wednesday that it had raised 2.0 billion euros (2.5 billion dollars) through an oversubscribed bond issue to help fund the group which is in the process of buying British nuclear power generators.

MOSCOW, Oct 12, 2007 (AFP) - French electricity utility EDF is in talks to acquire a minority stake in Russia's Inter RAO electricity exporter, the daily Kommersant reported on Friday citing people familiar with the situation.

The sources did not know the exact size of the stake which EDF could acquire, though one of them told the newspaper EDF would not take less than 25 percent in the company.

The newspaper said talks were still at an early stage.

WASHINGTON, Oct 9, 2007 (AFP) - In a record-breaking environmental settlement, a US power company accused of endangering millions of people has pledged to slash its emissions of acid-rain gases, officials said Tuesday.

The government said its deal with American Electric Power, one of the nation's biggest coal-fired electricity producers, would reduce respiratory diseases and ground pollution across the eastern United States.

WASHINGTON, Oct 9, 2007 (AFP) - A giant US power company has agreed to the country's largest ever environmental settlement, agreeing to spend billions to slash its emissions of acid-rain gases, the government said Tuesday.

At an estimated cost of more than 4.6 billion dollars, American Electric Power is to cut its emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, the Department of Justice and the Environmental Protection Agency said.

LOS ANGELES, Oct 2, 2007 (AFP) - Los Angeles area residents were invited Tuesday to turn off the lights for one hour on October 20 as a way to promote energy conservation.

City and county officials encouraged residents to participate in 'Lights out Los Angeles' activities by voluntarily turning off all non-essential lights between 8:00 and 9:00 pm (0300 and 0400 GMT October 21), and replace at least one incandescent light bulb with a low energy-consuming compact fluorescent bulb.

Some 10 million people live in the Los Angeles county area.

HARARE, Sept 29, 2007 (AFP) - Zimbabwe will experience more power cuts after Mozambique reduced supplies over unpaid debt, a state daily reported Saturday.

'Mozambique has reduced electricity supplies to Zimbabwe from 300 megawatts to 195 megawatts over a staggering debt of 35 million US dollars ... ' The Herald newspaper reported.

Zimbabwe imports 40 percent of its power needs: 100 megawatts a month from the Democratic Republic of Congo, 300 megawatts from Mozambique and up to 450 and 300 megawatts from South Africa and Zambia respectively.

MADRID, Sept 25, 2007 (AFP) - Iberdrola, Europe's third largest utility, said Tuesday that its construction unit has been awarded a contract worth 311 million euros (438.5 million US dollars) to build a 403-megawatt combined cycle electrical power plant in Russia.

'It is the company's first big contract in this country, where it opened a commercial office in 2005,' Iberdrola said in a statement.

BERLIN, Sept 24, 2007 (AFP) - The head of Germany's biggest energy company, EON, called for legal protection against hostile takeovers by foreign competitors, in an interview published Monday.

'It is unacceptable that companies that enjoy state protection in their own markets can make acquisitions in free markets like Germany's,' chief executive Wulf Bernotat told the business daily Financial Times Deutschland.

He said he backed proposals by the German government to amend its foreign trade law to take such takeovers into account.

BERLIN, Sept 17, 2007 (AFP) - The purchase of electricity company OGK-4 shows that German group E.ON is keen to become a major actor in the growing Russian market, in the midst of major reforms.

E.ON, the biggest German energy company, is to spend 4.1 billion euros (5.7 billion dollars) for 70 percent of the shares in OGK-4, one of several power companies that Russia has decided to privatise.

'It's the biggest investment in the history of the Russian electric sector,' Anatoly Chubais, chairman of the Russian electricity monopoly UES said Saturday.