Time to give electricity the flick?

Forums › Home Workshop DIY › Time to give electricity the flick?

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meow
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#2114555 26-Oct-2018 17:04

Flick just posted the following - good on them:

https://news.flickelectric.co.nz/2018/10/26/why-were-fighting-for-a-fairer-electricity-market-steve-oconnor/

Michael Murphy | https://murfy.nz
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pctek

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#2115112 27-Oct-2018 19:11

Aredwood:Back when I was with Flick, I saved over $1000 according to their built in savings calculator.
Main reason I switched away was actually to do with politics. Namely that it is a Labour/ greens government in power. .

All depends who you switched from. According to their calculator....hmm, I prefer to do my own, usinf rates and actual usages.

And you changed because of a govt?? How odd. Nothing to do with their horrendous charges now of course.

mentalinc

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#2115186 27-Oct-2018 20:40

You've been a Flick customer for some time now, and we really appreciate your support for our different way of doing things.

You will know that we're committed to shaking up the industry and giving Flicksters true power over their power.

You also probably know that spot prices have been elevated for the past couple of weeks due to a combination of supply issues and some unexplainable market behaviour - you can read more about our views on that in this blog from our Chief Flickster, Steve.

Because of these unpredictable market conditions we want you to seriously consider moving onto our FIXIE plan. We want all of our customers to be getting the best Flick deal, all the time. Right now, that's FIXIE.

FIXIE does come with a 6mo contract, but it only costs $10 per month remaining to break that contract. Even if you decide to flick back to Freestyle in a few months, we still believe you will be better off in the short term.

We are so committed to giving you the fairest deal, if you flick to FIXIE before midnight Sunday 28 October we will back date your FIXIE price to the start of this week (Monday 22 October).

Please use the form on the link below to request a switch and we'll do the rest.

Switch To FIXIE

If you decide not to flick plans, we want to give you a heads up that your next few bills are likely to be much the same as the bill you received this week.

We still wholeheartedly believe Freestyle delivers great savings for customers long term. What we don't believe in, however, are our customers riding a spot market that we feel is being manipulated by big companies acting opportunistically. Until we get the answers that we are entitled to - and that we want to give you - we don't want to leave you exposed.

If you have tried to get hold of us this week, we're sorry for any delays getting back to you. Our hard working team at Flick HQ are working around the clock to help everyone. If you're still waiting on a response, please PM us on our Facebook page - we have an extra team managing Facebook so we're able to process questions faster.

Have a great weekend

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Scott3

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#2115203 27-Oct-2018 21:18

michaelmurfy:

Flick just posted the following - good on them:

https://news.flickelectric.co.nz/2018/10/26/why-were-fighting-for-a-fairer-electricity-market-steve-oconnor/

That kinda stuff is one of the reasons that I got off wholesale prices a little over a year ago. (also with my wife pregnant, shaping energy usage according to wholesale prices was infeasible).

Most of the big players in this space hedge (both on the usage, and generation side). (somebody like genesis agreeing to pay the difference between the spot price and $160/mWh to a retailer (for xx MW), whenever average prices exceed say $200 over 48 hours, in return for a significant monthly fee). Genesis can run Huntley to make that power, so they are giving up the ability to make rare super normal profits, in return for a predictable monthly income.). Other than fully fixed price, retail customer do not have the ability to set up this kind of price ceiling hedging.... One generator built a ultra low cost diesel pecker plant near the refinery, when they couldn't get a hedging deal that suited them.

Something that is quite scary when you consider that in a constrained market, a generator that holds a lot of capacity can spike the price easily be simply holding back (or offering in at high price) a big chunk of capacity (i.e. accepting to run less capacity for a much higher unit price on capacity that is dispatched.) We ran simulations of this marketplace in uni, and basically the goal was to take advantage of any market power given.

What happened with ENRON in the USA, makes it further clear how market power can be exploited. (financial traders took control of ENRON, and worked out that by pulling a few major plants offline for "unscheduled maintenance", which in turn caused massive rolling blackouts across California, and sent the spot price to the sky, so they made enormous money from remaining plants. Also criminal stuff.)

Bobdn

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#2115249 27-Oct-2018 23:22

Really good article here, which the Flick blog refers to. https://www.energylink.co.nz/news/blog/whys-and-wherefores-high-spot-prices It was great to get some historical context.

The graphs in the article were fascinating. It looks like in 2008 there were two maybe three months (if I'm reading it right) where prices were over 200mw/h and one month of 300mw! Flick has previously said that "A price spike, by definition, will be very brief – usually one, and occasionally two 30-minute trading periods." I'm sure that's right for the most part but it looks like there are rare times such as 2008 and now where very high prices roll on for an extended period. https://news.flickelectric.co.nz/2016/06/03/price-spike-101/

The Electricity Authority released some useful information a few days ago and says:

"Generators have been offering their electricity into the market at a higher price as a result of these constrained supply conditions. It’s important to note that this is the electricity market working as it should in these conditions. It is a means of managing supply."

https://www.ea.govt.nz/about-us/media-and-publications/media-releases/2018/23-october-2018-wholesale-electricity-market/

voy1d

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#2115252 27-Oct-2018 23:31

Scott3:

That kinda stuff is one of the reasons that I got off wholesale prices a little over a year ago. (also with my wife pregnant, shaping energy usage according to wholesale prices was infeasible).

Most of the big players in this space hedge (both on the usage, and generation side). (somebody like genesis agreeing to pay the difference between the spot price and $160/mWh to a retailer (for xx MW), whenever average prices exceed say $200 over 48 hours, in return for a significant monthly fee). Genesis can run Huntley to make that power, so they are giving up the ability to make rare super normal profits, in return for a predictable monthly income.). Other than fully fixed price, retail customer do not have the ability to set up this kind of price ceiling hedging.... One generator built a ultra low cost diesel pecker plant near the refinery, when they couldn't get a hedging deal that suited them.

Something that is quite scary when you consider that in a constrained market, a generator that holds a lot of capacity can spike the price easily be simply holding back (or offering in at high price) a big chunk of capacity (i.e. accepting to run less capacity for a much higher unit price on capacity that is dispatched.) We ran simulations of this marketplace in uni, and basically the goal was to take advantage of any market power given.

What happened with ENRON in the USA, makes it further clear how market power can be exploited. (financial traders took control of ENRON, and worked out that by pulling a few major plants offline for "unscheduled maintenance", which in turn caused massive rolling blackouts across California, and sent the spot price to the sky, so they made enormous money from remaining plants. Also criminal stuff.)

What you're suggesting is not really possible in New Zealand, especially given there are trading conduct provisions in the code. Add to that the EA constantly monitors the behaviour of market participants and interrogates any pivotal (and net pivotal) generators when they are concerned about trading behaviors.

dantheperson

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#2115288 28-Oct-2018 08:00

50c/mwh, really?

Scott3

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#2115289 28-Oct-2018 08:11

The ENRON scandal involved criminal behavior, so it shouldn't have happened in the USA either...

One of the most notable incidents, is known as "Big Saturday", and involved Genesis using market power gained due to a secluded transmission line outage to spike the wholesale price in Upper NZ to approxx $20,000. In the end the price was revised down, but it definitely caused a shock for (at the time mostly commercial/industrial) users who were exposed to the sport market (took 2 months to strike down prices so bills had to be paid as they stood). I think most of the reason for that was "deceptive conduct" in that the value of the offer of the capacity was changed at the last minute, when it was both too late to delay the scheduled outage, or take other action to keep costs reasonable.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10723856

https://www.interest.co.nz/news/54381/genesis-takes-regulators-big-saturday-ruling-court-says-normal-and-appropriate-market

Bobdn

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#2115324 28-Oct-2018 10:17

Just looked at the links, interesting but the conclusion was that Genesis hadn't undertaken "deceptive" conduct. Maybe take another look at them.

MikeAqua

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#2116085 29-Oct-2018 12:43

It's logical that one day these particular Kereru would stumble home to roost.

Surely 'Flicksters' have to expect that spot prices will go through occasional extended periods of high prices - especially with population and economic growth outstripping supply growth and climate becoming more volatile. If you have the cashflow to pay your bills you still save in the longer term.

The short term cash flow implications are the reason I'm not on the spot market.

Mike

voy1d

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#2116129 29-Oct-2018 13:01

Scott3:

The ENRON scandal involved criminal behavior, so it shouldn't have happened in the USA either...

One of the most notable incidents, is known as "Big Saturday", and involved Genesis using market power gained due to a secluded transmission line outage to spike the wholesale price in Upper NZ to approxx $20,000. In the end the price was revised down, but it definitely caused a shock for (at the time mostly commercial/industrial) users who were exposed to the sport market (took 2 months to strike down prices so bills had to be paid as they stood). I think most of the reason for that was "deceptive conduct" in that the value of the offer of the capacity was changed at the last minute, when it was both too late to delay the scheduled outage, or take other action to keep costs reasonable.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10723856

https://www.interest.co.nz/news/54381/genesis-takes-regulators-big-saturday-ruling-court-says-normal-and-appropriate-market

As I said, the trading conduct provisions deal with this and the EA is proactively revising offering strategies made by generators and asking them why they do things they do in the way they do.

Those were introduced as a result of the actions Genesis took on that Saturday in question and part of their analysis focuses on the behaviour of net pivotal generators.

zerkms

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#2116720 30-Oct-2018 12:06

Oh, I just received a spam like from a flick, and it even contained the proper (!!!) street address and customer number (!!!).

I also checked - even the billed amounts match (!!!), but only spans to the July 2017.

The link under the button is https://flick.invoiced.com/statements/<tracking-code>

Did flick have their database stolen? 🤔

gchiu

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#2116725 30-Oct-2018 12:16

Or perhaps maybe you were hacked?

zerkms

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#2116727 30-Oct-2018 12:17

gchiu:

Or perhaps maybe you were hacked?

It's highly unlikely (and makes very little sense if we assume somebody could get access to my email)

Hammerer

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#2116731 30-Oct-2018 12:26

zerkms:

Oh, I just received a spam like from a flick, and it even contained the proper (!!!) street address and customer number (!!!).

I also checked - even the billed amounts match (!!!), but only spans to the July 2017.

The link under the button is https://flick.invoiced.com/statements/<tracking-code>

Did flick have their database stolen? 🤔

Ask Flick!

Probably not anything nefarious.

Invoiced.com provide invoicing services and Flick Electric is one of their customers.

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