Tokyo Electric Power : Japanese utilities send power to Chubu Electric on cold weather demand spike

TOKYO (Reuters) - Chubu Electric Power Co, Japan's third-biggest utility, said on Thursday needed power supplies from seven other utilities to meet rising demand caused by cold weather and insufficient output from solar generation systems.

Chubu said in a statement that it had received up to 1.05 gigawatts (GW) of power from the other utilities.

"We are also ramping up one of our coal-fired power plants and one of our LNG (liquefied natural gas) power stations as electricity demand for heat increased due to lower-than-expected temperatures and cloudy weather caused lower-than-expected output from solar power," a spokesman at Chubu Electric said.

The power providers include Tohoku Electric Power, TEPCO Power Grid, a unit of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Hokuriku Electric Power, Hokkaido Electric Power, Chugoku Electric Power, Shikoku Electric Power and Kyushu Electric Power, he said.

"We may start up some old fossil fuel power plants that had been mothballed to meet higher demand," the spokesman said.

The last time the company needed power from other utilities was in February 2017.

(Reporting by Yuka Obayashi; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)