Time to give electricity the flick?

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3885 posts

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#2270167 4-Jul-2019 21:46

tdgeek:

heapsort:

I will probably stay with the Fixie plan for a while yet, but I originally joined Flick for what's now called the Freestyle plan (before there was Fixie) and on principle I'd like to be back on it when market conditions are suitable. Not necessarily waiting for Freestyle to be clearly lower cost than Fixie, just for it to be without too much risk of excessive spikes.

What gets me is that Flick offer spot. Cheaper. Maybe they have spikes. If every user was able to "flick" to and from every 40 minutes it will go broke. Then you all go back to Genesis, no gain. Innovation loses.

Unfortunately, you are not going to get any proper innovation in the electricity sector, until the Low User Regulations are repealed. As they say that the low user plans must be the cheapest plans, and at the same time, also say that the low user plans can't have fixed fees any higher than 33c per day. And that you can't offer stepped or tiered pricing.

Good luck trying to offer innovation within those constraints.

They also screwed Flick on the Orion network in Christchurch. As Flick were not allowed to directly "pass through" the Orion lines charges exactly as how Orion bill them.

And then you have the problem of rising electricity demand. No new major power stations under construction (that Im aware of). Environmental costs making fossil fuel generation more expensive. Combined with RMA related costs making renewable generation more expensive. Meaning that you can't easily avoid the higher cost fossil fuel generated power by switching to renewable generated power.

And the ongoing questions of whether the Bluff Smelter will close down or not. Meaning that there is the risk that it's demand would then become available on the wholesale market. And in turn risks killing the financial viability of building new generation.

As much as I love Flick Electric, Unfortunately they have been victims of factors beyond the wholesale market. And I have had to change to Meridian from Flick myself. (I am on a cheap fixed term price, which means Meridian are making a loss whenever the wholesale price is over 9.5c per KW/Hr or so).

Unfortunately I don't think much will change anytime soon. As the baby boomer / retirees voter bloc tends to benefit the most from the Low User Regulations (as they tend to live in households that have lower numbers of occupants on average). While young(er) people (due to flatting, having dependent kids etc). And Maori / Pacific families. Tend to live in households with more occupants. And since the Low User Regulations favour households with lower numbers of occupants. The government doesn't want to annoy the group that benefits the most. As that group has the most voting power.

It will only be a matter of time until we have another electricity shortage. But when the next one happens, it will cause big problems for EV owners. (EVs were extremely rare during previous shortages). And only then would the government do something.

heapsort

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#2270223 5-Jul-2019 05:53

Aredwood:

Unfortunately, you are not going to get any proper innovation in the electricity sector, until the Low User Regulations are repealed. As they say that the low user plans must be the cheapest plans, and at the same time, also say that the low user plans can't have fixed fees any higher than 33c per day. And that you can't offer stepped or tiered pricing.

Good luck trying to offer innovation within those constraints.

I agree they are a part of the problem, but I think there are much bigger problems. Case in point, the high wholesale prices late last year that prompted a number of independent retailers (Flick, Electric Kiwi, and others) and Vector to lodge an Undesired Trading Situation claim alleging the big gentailers (particularly Genesis and Contact) were flouting their market disclosure obligations. Repealing low user regulations would not have helped this.

A far bigger problem than low user regulations, in my opinion, if the ability of the big gentailers to sidestep and manipulate the wholesale market. I think a recent opinion article from Ecotricity summarised it fairly well: NZ has exceptionally low liquidity in its wholesale market. Forcing the gentailers to split into separate generation and retail companies is a complicated way to address it, but a simpler way may be to force them to trade a much higher amount of generation on the spot market.

tdgeek

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#2270236 5-Jul-2019 07:23

Aredwood:

Unfortunately, you are not going to get any proper innovation in the electricity sector, until the Low User Regulations are repealed. As they say that the low user plans must be the cheapest plans, and at the same time, also say that the low user plans can't have fixed fees any higher than 33c per day. And that you can't offer stepped or tiered pricing.

Good luck trying to offer innovation within those constraints.

They also screwed Flick on the Orion network in Christchurch. As Flick were not allowed to directly "pass through" the Orion lines charges exactly as how Orion bill them.

And then you have the problem of rising electricity demand. No new major power stations under construction (that Im aware of). Environmental costs making fossil fuel generation more expensive. Combined with RMA related costs making renewable generation more expensive. Meaning that you can't easily avoid the higher cost fossil fuel generated power by switching to renewable generated power.

And the ongoing questions of whether the Bluff Smelter will close down or not. Meaning that there is the risk that it's demand would then become available on the wholesale market. And in turn risks killing the financial viability of building new generation.

As much as I love Flick Electric, Unfortunately they have been victims of factors beyond the wholesale market. And I have had to change to Meridian from Flick myself. (I am on a cheap fixed term price, which means Meridian are making a loss whenever the wholesale price is over 9.5c per KW/Hr or so).

Unfortunately I don't think much will change anytime soon. As the baby boomer / retirees voter bloc tends to benefit the most from the Low User Regulations (as they tend to live in households that have lower numbers of occupants on average). While young(er) people (due to flatting, having dependent kids etc). And Maori / Pacific families. Tend to live in households with more occupants. And since the Low User Regulations favour households with lower numbers of occupants. The government doesn't want to annoy the group that benefits the most. As that group has the most voting power.

It will only be a matter of time until we have another electricity shortage. But when the next one happens, it will cause big problems for EV owners. (EVs were extremely rare during previous shortages). And only then would the government do something.

Agree re Low User

We seem to have had a lot of innovation though. Flick, EK.

IIRC on one of the EV threads it was concluded that adding more hydro/green generation was inefficient. I still dont get that. While EV numbers will not go through the roof in the next 5 - 10 years, they will slowly consume more and more power

Dont we already have regular shortages? Passively we manage peak usage with ripple control. Even now, with no hydro issues, we are still just 10% below peak, (Orion) Going by the Flick thread there were big spikes last year in Summer and Winter. While these arent necessarily "shortages" we seem to be operating fairly close to what we need. Thats withour any shortages of water at the moment and these can and will happen at times

pchs

185 posts

Master Geek

#2270256 5-Jul-2019 08:35

Aredwood:

They also screwed Flick on the Orion network in Christchurch. As Flick were not allowed to directly "pass through" the Orion lines charges exactly as how Orion bill them.

I find this interesting, as a user who has been significantly impacted by Flick "fixie'ing" their Freestyle Orion winter pricing. What was it stopped Flick passing on the high use periods (7-10am 5-7pm) like they did last year? also Orion's wash up capacity charges are calculated in only those times as well so if you were able to shift your usage out of those times entirely (Battery storage) then Orion wont bill any washup capacity charges to that ICP either.

With battery's I used to occasionally push power back out to the grid at the high demand times in the winter, now its averaged there's rarely any point. If i used a significant amount of electricity at say between 7am-9am weekdays Flick would probably loose money on me.

The variable charges at 12pm today in Christchurch from flick is 17.082c - the price they pay Orion at 12pm today in Christchurch is 7.5559c

akmodi

26 posts

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#2277437 15-Jul-2019 22:01

muppet:

gchiu:

muppet:

So thanks Flick, they gave me access to the IFTTT applet.

I have it setup now so I when the price of power is going to be over X (I have to edit the IFTTT applet to adjust X), it sends a Web request to my Home Assistant, which then triggers the 3 thermostats in my house to turn off. So the poor kids will freeze, but at least I won't be paying megabucks for Power.

Very easy to setup!

How about sending a text to your kids at the same time to put on some warm clothing, or, have that shower now before the water goes cold!

It's only the heater in a 3 and a 5yo's bedroom at night. They're under lots of blankets anyway, but their room temp can drop to 10c sometimes on a really cold night with no heater.

Hi Muppet,

how does one get access to the IFTTT applet? Thanks

boosacnoodle

963 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2280935 21-Jul-2019 20:07

I am going back and checking some older invoices and noticed that the meter consumption I have been billed for on the top line of the invoice doesn't actually match what was charged for on the generation consumption. Anyone else having this issue?

voy1d

178 posts

Master Geek

#2280957 21-Jul-2019 20:32

If you guys are talking about the Orion Winter Peak Demand price it's not as simple as certain times of the day.

Orion during the course of May - August have to run "Peak Control" periods which are closely related to stress on their distribution network. The details of these are available ex-post so as a retailer trying to work this out is next to impossible, adding to this Orion bill the retailers at a GXP level based on KW demand and not KWh consumption.

To convert this to a charge for a customer is hard, because even though Orion estimate for the retailers what the value will be they still wash it up to the retailers who could easily be out of pocket. For example we have a mild winter this year so the number of control periods is greatly reduced. As of today there have been 47 hours of control, last year at this time there were 51 hours, the year before 59 hours, the year before 12.5 hours and the year before that 71 hours.

You're right, this sort of s*** is stifling innovation and until the LUC and the networks are regulated to a specific regime then we'll not really get anywhere.

larknz

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#2280965 21-Jul-2019 20:51

You can't really blame Orion. Their charges from Transpower are based on their peaks. So it is in their interest, and their customers, to keep the peaks as low as possible. Every other network company is charged on the same basis.
Plus keeping the peaks down lets them defer network capacity upgrades, which also saves customers.

nickb800

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#2281039 22-Jul-2019 05:54

larknz: You can't really blame Orion. Their charges from Transpower are based on their peaks. So it is in their interest, and their customers, to keep the peaks as low as possible. Every other network company is charged on the same basis.
Plus keeping the peaks down lets them defer network capacity upgrades, which also saves customers.

I agree. Electra takes an alternative approach, building in the Transpower capacity charges into their prices and making an adjustment in the following years price update to allow for any over /under shoot. A pretty blunt approach really

pchs

185 posts

Master Geek

#2285669 30-Jul-2019 13:03

Does anyone have any insight into what is keeping the generation charges so high? even in very off-peak times we are seeing a sustained ~$.10 / kWh price. often in previous years we would see it come down to 1-5c often in very off-peak times.

I can't quite work it out, lakes look OK, no major shortages.

It presumably wont just be a problem for spot users, as hedge's are renewed it presumably will push prices up for all.

nickb800

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#2412905 5-Feb-2020 11:19

Flick released a new product EARNIE this week. In return for slightly higher per unit prices (on a FIXIE basis), it offers a $50 credit each year, 2 average hours free per day (i.e. an 8.3% discount), and a Z voucher for 2L of petrol per $100 spent (i.e. a 4% fuel rebate).

I've run the numbers on my usage - the value of the 2 free hours and $50 credit essentially cover the price increase, meaning that the fuel voucher is a bonus ~$60 per year. I kinda resent this approach from Flick - I appreciate them for their straight-up pricing without gimmicks (as well as being cheapest option for me). But, with money on the table, I'm thinking about switching over.

tdgeek

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#2412912 5-Feb-2020 11:29

nickb800:

Flick released a new product EARNIE this week. In return for slightly higher per unit prices (on a FIXIE basis), it offers a $50 credit each year, 2 average hours free per day (i.e. an 8.3% discount), and a Z voucher for 2L of petrol per $100 spent (i.e. a 4% fuel rebate).

I've run the numbers on my usage - the value of the 2 free hours and $50 credit essentially cover the price increase, meaning that the fuel voucher is a bonus ~$60 per year. I kinda resent this approach from Flick - I appreciate them for their straight-up pricing without gimmicks (as well as being cheapest option for me). But, with money on the table, I'm thinking about switching over.

Seems like its all gimmicks to me. The 2 free hours isn't 8%, its as much as you can timeshift, and on EK you can get a lot of usage into the free hour, and more of you had two hours. I hope EK ups it to 2 hours to compete with Flick

dolsen

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#2412934 5-Feb-2020 11:40

tdgeek:

Seems like its all gimmicks to me. The 2 free hours isn't 8%, its as much as you can timeshift, and on EK you can get a lot of usage into the free hour, and more of you had two hours. I hope EK ups it to 2 hours to compete with Flick

Not quite. It's

"No claiming, choosing or fussing around - we just add up your usage and take two average hours of power off your bill EVERY day."

Not a 2 hour window where your use is free.

tdgeek

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#2412942 5-Feb-2020 11:46

dolsen:

tdgeek:

Seems like its all gimmicks to me. The 2 free hours isn't 8%, its as much as you can timeshift, and on EK you can get a lot of usage into the free hour, and more of you had two hours. I hope EK ups it to 2 hours to compete with Flick

Not quite. It's

"No claiming, choosing or fussing around - we just add up your usage and take two average hours of power off your bill EVERY day."

Not a 2 hour window where your use is free.

Oh, that's worthless. Given that 1/3 of the 24 hours are very low usage, its probably less than the mathematical 8%. 8% of the day, but circa 5% of active usage.

michaelmurfy

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#2412967 5-Feb-2020 12:01

I did change to Earnie to test it - will be deciding if I stay based on how my bills are.

Cost per unit went from 20.2c/unit to 23.2c/unit. No change to my standard daily charge or anything else. I do have quite a few things on 24/7 and average bill is $45/wk.

Michael Murphy | https://murfy.nz
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