Searching for the Cheapest Power Company...

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nate

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#469804 16-May-2011 18:24

richms: No they are not, if you do the figures on 2000+ kWH a month, they are one of the most expensive. Cheapest I have found is genesis on the day/night tarrif now that I have the meter that can do it.

Agreed, sort of.

I've just swapped one of my businesses from Powershop back to Genesis - the 10% prompt payment discount, plus the lower rates means a big saving. The fact they also do gas (Mercury will do residential but not commercial gas, go figure) with the 10% discount also gives us a saving when compared to our current provider Nova Gas.

Do your research, Power shop didn't work for me, however that's just one scenario.

k14

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#469813 16-May-2011 18:46

nickb800:
It doesnt cost you anything to change, theres no contract term & you dont lose power at any stage. About 10mins of filling in a form online and the rest is done for you. And you get 5000 brownie points which can buy you ~$40 of vouchers for various retailers

Second that. I live in Central Otago and did some analysis last week after seeing Contact put their prices up. I used my own electricity usage from the last year and worked the nett price per kWhr after all prompt payment discounts, summer/winter price variations, loyalty discounts etc (although not flybuys/brownie points etc). I found that Genesis was the cheapest at 25.4c, Contact was 30.5c and Trustpower was 32.3c. It is hard to get a bearing on Powershop because there are so many different power prices over a year and your bought units expire after 60 days. It also requires some effort on behalf of the consumer whereas apart from the 30 min spreadsheet I made up and the 5 mins to change to Genesis online it is all automated. I did find on the Powershop site that over a year it averages 27.2c but that will depend on how you heat etc. I didn't bother with Meridian cause they are ever so slightly more expensive than Genesis but easily cheaper than Contact.

So I filled in the forms on the Genesis website last Monday, on Friday I got my final reading bill from Contact and now I am officially a Genesis customer. My 5000 brownie points will buy me a 4gb sd card for my GPS. And I will end up saving between $70-100 in the next year. Genesis also have a price guarantee till 1st June 2012 and no fixed term contract. So I am free to do the same analysis when they put their prices up next year and swap to whoever I want.

Looking at the above numbers it defies belief that anyone is a Trustpower customer. Some people will be paying up to $1000 a year for no added benefit. Here in Otago they are the dominant retailer with more share than anyone else. No wonder they make so much money!

billgates

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#469820 16-May-2011 19:09

I sat down with both my home and business premises electricity bill from Genesis last week on powershop's website. For both premises, Genesis was cheaper and powershop's online calculator was kind enough to tell me that.

Do whatever you want to do man.

Shoes2468

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#469886 16-May-2011 21:43

+1 for Genesis being cheapest in CHCH at the moment

NonprayingMantis

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#469949 17-May-2011 08:25

robbyp:
graemeh:
sbiddle: Powershop are the cheapest.

No it is not. It depends on your usage.

Yes when I was investigating prices, they also weren't the cheapest, it totally depends on your usage. Genesis was the cheapest when I was last checking. As all power to a property is the same, and you are just paying a middleman reseller, it does make perfect sense to go for the cheapest.

not necessarily. there are other aspects than just the price. e.g. customer service

ChrisNZL

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#469959 17-May-2011 08:53

One thing I love about Powershop is that they usually have specials a couple of times each month, announced on their Facebook and Twitter pages.

But yes, different companies are cheaper than others for some, depending on location, usage, etc. Find out which one's best for you.

Creator of Tallowmere. Working on Tallowmere 2.

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Shop on-line at New World now for your groceries (affiliate link).

wreck90

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#470069 17-May-2011 12:41

I've signed up with Genesis.

I use a lot of electricity. Genesis are the cheapest option after justenergy (after a little googling, justenergy appears related to pulse whose reputation appears not so good).

According to the powerswitch - I should save around $1000 a year.

This is good, last year my gas company informed me they were raising prices by quite a lot. So, I shopped around and found genesis also had cheaper gas so saved quite a lot there too.

Usually I wouldn't have bothered, but this recession and general inflation is impacting my disposable income. I even moved my savings out of my cheque account ha ha.

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