Electricity plan shopping

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meow
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#3066582 21-Apr-2023 16:04

For anyone with a Tesla, Octopus Energy are currently testing a smart charging solution called "Intelligent Octopus". I've personally had it activated for 2 nights now and with the exception of teething issues on the first night it has actually been pretty good: https://octopusenergy.nz/intelligent-octopus

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cshwone

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#3066636 21-Apr-2023 16:59

Scott3:

I imagine most providers will ditch their low user plans once they are no longer mandated, hence only offering standard like plans. Of course nothing to stop a power company offering low daily rates if they like.

Actually, low user plans are already dead and that was mandated by the government, we are just in the transition period where low user rates are being progessively altered such that everyone ends up on the same rates for a given company be they high or low users.

Scott3

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#3066641 21-Apr-2023 17:09

cshwone:

Scott3:

I imagine most providers will ditch their low user plans once they are no longer mandated, hence only offering standard like plans. Of course nothing to stop a power company offering low daily rates if they like.

Actually, low user plans are already dead and that was mandated by the government, we are just in the transition period where low user rates are being progressively altered such that everyone ends up on the same rates for a given company be they high or low users.

It is still mandated that power companies have low user plans until the phase out is complete (some time in 2027).

Of course, there is nothing to stop a power company from continuing to offer a low daily fee plan after that. But I don't think many will, pretty much regardless of the kWh rate they will lose money on households who lose close to zero power.

That said octopus chose to run a zero daily fee plan for most of the last year, I assume as a marketing move to encourage signups as it breaks into a new market

Scott3

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#3066642 21-Apr-2023 17:13

FailedWOF:

No care factor on the churn either, but so far I've never found "retention" to be a thing with any B2C provider in NZ. Just an email asking if I'm sure and a k, thanks, bye.

On churn, there was a law change a couple of years back, restricting what power retailers can do.

In short, if a customer moves away, there is a 180 day period before they can be contated with sweet offers to lure them back.

Of course if a customer phones up and says give me better rates, or I will move, the power company can respond to that, but frankly as a customer it seems easier to just churn.

https://thespinoff.co.nz/partner/19-02-2020/why-youll-no-longer-get-offered-a-fridge-to-go-back-to-your-old-power-company

nickb800

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#3067888 25-Apr-2023 14:08

PolicyGuy:

The truth of the matter is that it costs your local electricity distribution company pretty much exactly the same to supply your (standard 63A single phase) residential connection whether you've got your oven and old-style electric hot water service running flat out 24/7 and drawing 60A all day, or have PV & a battery and a wetback stove for hot water, so only use the grid connection very lightly and occasionally.

There's a bit more nuance to it. From the street transformer to your pole fuse, utilization won't make a difference to the size of the network and therefore the cost of providing the connection. But between the street transformer to the Transpower GXP, utilisation makes a big difference to the size of the cables and transformers i.e. sub-transmission. These are the assets that lines companies are thinking about when switching ripple controlled circuits off. Plenty of lines companies have time of use pricing to reflect the higher marginal cost of using the local network at peak times, beyond what they face in time-of-demand pricing from Transpower

networkn

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#3067993 25-Apr-2023 20:55

I am obviously missing something (perhaps a brain?) but when I tried to use Power Switch, it didn't work the way I expected.

I am with Mercury, 13th March to April we used 828kWh @ 18c, and 33 days at 211.55 cents per day and 828 x 0.11 all plus GST for a total of about $247.

PS worked out my ICP and provider, but when it asked me if I had a plan, it didn't ask me those numbers, it asked me to select a plan (and didn't have the plan I am on which is apparently called 'Residential Electricity'

It asked me a couple of questions and then suggested I'd be spending $1600 a year, which would be a huge saving, but one I can't really believe.

HarmLessSolutions

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#3068004 25-Apr-2023 21:46

PowerSwitch is still a very rudimentary tool. No input to indicate if a customer has an EV or PV, both of which make a huge difference to choice of provider and plan that is best suited and potentially cheapest, and our Ecotricity Eco Saver Low User Peak/Off Peak plan isn't included in the ones that PowerSwitch display.

At least PowerSwitch is now listing solar export rates for power suppliers but of limited use when this isn't integrated into the main functionality of their website.

https://www.harmlesssolutions.co.nz/

AklBen

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#3068027 26-Apr-2023 07:58

Yeah I've never actually found Power Switch that accurate - or at least I know too much to know that it isn't quite right. I always get the raw rates and use a spreadsheet.

wally22

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#3068133 26-Apr-2023 12:21

I recently moved to Octopus (13th of March)

Today got a call from Meridian offering $250 bonus (I would rather have the free fridge ;) ) and 2 year fixed. Was that coincidental?

I didn't gather any more info.

AklBen

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#3068136 26-Apr-2023 12:52

One thing that was pretty dodgy about Power Switch (and I know that some retailers complained) was for Electric Kiwi the free hour of power got included as a discount with a flat %.

shim99

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#3068143 26-Apr-2023 13:09

michaelmurfy:
For anyone with a Tesla, Octopus Energy are currently testing a smart charging solution called "Intelligent Octopus". I've personally had it activated for 2 nights now and with the exception of teething issues on the first night it has actually been pretty good: https://octopusenergy.nz/intelligent-octopus

Do they offer any special rates for this? I have teslafi for setting charging schedules for using night rate. Wondering if there is benefit over and above the $10 they give you for participating.

michaelmurfy

meow
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#3068151 26-Apr-2023 14:08

shim99: Do they offer any special rates for this? I have teslafi for setting charging schedules for using night rate. Wondering if there is benefit over and above the $10 they give you for participating.

Maybe in the future. Currently it is just the $10/mo which IMHO is still worth it. I just have my car start charging regardless at 11pm (when off-peak starts) the Octopus control the charging from that point. Basically is a free $10 for me and my car still gets charged overnight at off-peak rates.

mattwnz

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#3068167 26-Apr-2023 15:03

AklBen:

Yeah I've never actually found Power Switch that accurate - or at least I know too much to know that it isn't quite right. I always get the raw rates and use a spreadsheet.

I also don't think it is updated all that regularly. I couldn't use it when I was last looking as it wasn't accurate. IMO power companies should quote all their pricing including GST, as most of their customers are consumers. But for some reason they often quote excluding GST. IMO there doesn't really feel like there is much real competition. Removing low user rates IMO was also a bad idea, because it doesn't incentivise people to use less power, If you hardly use any power, then your power bill is going to rise by a massive percentage over the next 5 years. Car owners don't have to pay a daily rate for the NZ petrol infrastructure and distribution in NZ, they only pay for the petrol to use, which covers that. So IMO the daily fees should be coveed as a percentage of the unit rate. So that would incentivise people to use less power, and mean we won't need to build as much generation in the future. WE don't want rolling blackouts like they do in South Africa.

AklBen

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#3068179 26-Apr-2023 15:41

"Removing low user rates IMO was also a bad idea, because it doesn't incentivise people to use less power, If you hardly use any power, then your power bill is going to rise by a massive percentage over the next 5 years."

One can use less power from the national grid because they top it up with self-generation or one can use less power. Until that self-generation person goes off-grid the lines need to be built and maintained, and as someone in previous posts said above - it makes no difference if you consume 1kwh a day or 60kwh a day it still costs $x to get it to your home. Then secondly even if we used less, the population still grows and new generation capacity needs to be built/maintained.

Until self-generation occurs at scale, and self-generation here in NZ is supplanted by batteries (because our peak is usually in the dark), I wouldn't expect to see any changes to the pricing models that reflect a customer's consumption profile.

Batman

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#3068192 26-Apr-2023 16:12

anyone knows the best plan for Dunedin?

I've given up trying to compare myself because I can't find the rates published

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