Flick is likely still cheaper than Genesis overall. I'm only paying 12c/kwh + GST right now, according to the flick dashboard.

I asked Orion to confirm their intention to retain off peak pricing for uncontrolled loads. Their reply stated that they have no current plans, and changes would require consultation and notification, and that the typical metering setup in Christchurch means that offpeak pricing for controlled loads would be unlikely (Christchurch tends to have only one meter, even if hot water is subject to ripple control).

timmmay:

 

Flick is likely still cheaper than Genesis overall. I'm only paying 12c/kwh + GST right now, according to the flick dashboard.

 

And you are in Wellington?

How are you only paying that at this time? I am paying 21.2 cents / unit currently. I've only seen those sort of rates (and cheaper) during off peak times. What is your metering setup to get those rates at this time?

dolsen:

 

timmmay:

 

Flick is likely still cheaper than Genesis overall. I'm only paying 12c/kwh + GST right now, according to the flick dashboard.

 

 

And you are in Wellington?

 

How are you only paying that at this time? I am paying 21.2 cents / unit currently. I've only seen those sort of rates (and cheaper) during off peak times. What is your metering setup to get those rates at this time?

 

 

 

 

 

Based on my calculations, I'm paying around 11c/kwh (averaged from June till now) plus 1.97/day, price without GST.

I'm a Standard Plan user. 

You might be a low user.

droopanu:

 

dolsen:

 

And you are in Wellington?

 

How are you only paying that at this time? I am paying 21.2 cents / unit currently. I've only seen those sort of rates (and cheaper) during off peak times. What is your metering setup to get those rates at this time?

 

 

 

 

 Based on my calculations, I'm paying around 11c/kwh (averaged from June till now) plus 1.97/day, price without GST.

 

I'm a Standard Plan user. 

 

You might be a low user.

 

Thanks, that is it. I was looking at the difference in rates charged by WE, low user is 0.0929 on G102-AICO and std user is 0.0499 on G106-AICO, however, I didn't realise that flicks margin is also different based on what plan you are on, 3.75c kWh vs 1.5c kWh + 40c/day.

dolsen:

 

timmmay:

 

Flick is likely still cheaper than Genesis overall. I'm only paying 12c/kwh + GST right now, according to the flick dashboard.

 

 

And you are in Wellington?

 

How are you only paying that at this time? I am paying 21.2 cents / unit currently. I've only seen those sort of rates (and cheaper) during off peak times. What is your metering setup to get those rates at this time?

 

Yes to Wellington. This is straight from the Flick dashboard, screenshot attached. Fixed charge is either 6.6 or 8.8c/kwh (pretty sure the former), the floating power rate is running $0.0607/kwh at the moment.

timmmay:

 

Someone mentioned this already, but it's effectively a price rise. Isn't there a regulation that prevents them doing this? I expect they'll have had their lawyers look it over to make sure they can get away with it.

 

Wellington Electricity seems like an investment company, rather than a power company - I think they're owned by overseas interests. My few interactions have been semi regular power cuts in winter due to overloading, an 8 month delay approving use of power poles for UFB, and now this.

 

nickb800:

 

What was the point in WE doing that? It costs them literally nothing to deliver electricity offpeak as their network capacity is determined by peak demand. Incidentally, they can expect peak demand to incrementally increase now as their domestic customers have no incentive to time-shift. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

 

Reminds me how much I should appreciate Orion, with a 1.1 cent per kwh charge during nights and weekends

 

 

Given there's no competition I guess the logic was "we can increase the price, make more money, and there's nothing they can do about it".

 

droopanu:

 

Did a quick math and I get a 5-10% increase in price ... stink!

 

I still end up saving about ~17% from powershop (stead of ~22%), so flick still looks alright to me ..

 

 

A very small sample from eyeballing a few days data says I use around 10 units of power overnight, on water heating, dishwasher, heating, and sometimes the clothes drier. Some days it's 7, some days it's 15. But that means on average I will spend 60c per day extra, which is 20 - 25% of the savings moving to Flick. It's most annoyance at the arrogance that they can raise prices like that.

 

I'm with Flick and in Wgtn too...

In regards to your arrogance remark its what monopolies do when there isn't competition...charge what they can, hey the exec may now get bigger bonuses !

nickb800:

 

What was the point in WE doing that? It costs them literally nothing to deliver electricity offpeak as their network capacity is determined by peak demand. Incidentally, they can expect peak demand to incrementally increase now as their domestic customers have no incentive to time-shift. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

 

 

 

Reminds me how much I should appreciate Orion, with a 1.1 cent per kwh charge during nights and weekends

 

They are probably intending to sell interruptible load on the electricity reserves market. Which means they need a means of measuring how much controlled load there is, Have the ability to control it, And make it less likely that customers will bypass the load control system. (Requirement that only fixed wired loads can be connected to the controlled meter). So that is why they are only now offering the cheap prices where you have the controlled load going through a dedicated meter.

Be thankful that you at least still have a reasonable price gap between uncontrolled and single meter with controlled hot water. In Auckland it is virtually nothing, And they don't offer dual meter plans either in Auckland.

Sure, there is a time of use plan available in Auckland. But it's peak rate is way higher than the standard uncontrolled rate. So you have to have very low peak usage to make it worthwhile.

Just battled Ruby (I hate Ruby so much... it never agrees with me) and got @mentalinc's script running. If anyone wants to try it then here is what you're needing to do:

Install Xubuntu (lightweight FTW). I went to the extreme and did the absolute minimum to get it going.

sudo apt purge firefox && apt autoremove
sudo apt update && apt install ruby ruby-dev firefox=45.0.2+build1-0ubuntu1 git

Grab the goods. Under a regular (non-root) user do:

cd ~/
git clone https://github.com/mentalinc/flick_scrape_halfhour.git
cd flick_scrape_halfhour
bundle install

On your influxdb host:

sudo influx
CREATE DATABASE FlickUsage
exit

Next, edit your main.rb file and give your Flick deets as well as point it to your influx database. Run with "bundle exec ruby main.rb" and it should work no problems. Generally follow the readme on the GitHub repo from this point.

I've noticed that with me the data Flick provides is missing quite a bit - I've manually vetted this and as it turns out I've got quite a few missing days in a row which also messes up the script so not sure what is going on with my readings... Such a shame as many people here seem to have more up-to-date data.

michaelmurfy:

 

Install Xubuntu (lightweight FTW). I went to the extreme and did the absolute minimum to get it going.

 

sudo apt purge firefox && apt autoremove
sudo apt update && apt install ruby ruby-dev firefox=45.0.2+build1-0ubuntu1 git

 

Grab the goods. Under a regular (non-root) user do:

 

cd ~/
git clone https://github.com/mentalinc/flick_scrape_halfhour.git
cd flick_scrape_halfhour
bundle install

 

On your influxdb host:

 

sudo influx
CREATE DATABASE FlickUsage
exit

 

Next, edit your main.rb file and give your Flick deets as well as point it to your influx database. Run with "bundle exec ruby main.rb" and it should work no problems. Generally follow the readme on the GitHub repo from this point.

 

 

 

I'll update the readme on github tonight to include this to help others along....

Unfortunately I made the call that if one reading (even if it's just 1 reading in the day) is missing the whole day is missed. Once Flick posts the data up you could edit the date config file so it goes back and fills in the blanks. But is 1 day missing every now and then (never seen a multiday stretch) worth the effort...

you coudl also just edit the rub file as well to run for just the day you want it to along with editing the date config file...

What does the script do that the Flick console doesn't do? Does it work on Centos/Amazon Linux? I have a server that's underutilized that I could have do this.

timmmay:

 

What does the script do that the Flick console doesn't do? Does it work on Centos/Amazon Linux? I have a server that's underutilized that I could have do this.

 

Provides all your usage data going back to when you first joined all in one screen, you can then decide based on the filters in grafana what period of time to show.

Flick console is limited in time period it can display..

The blank graph is new code I've got running but not pushed to github yet.

If it supports ruby and has grafana and influxdb then yes it should work, and steps should be similar except you yum instead of apt-get....

Sounds interesting. If I set the system up now will it grab all the data going back to when I started using Flick? Or is it from now on? The Flick console is pretty good, but a bit slow.

I might have a go at getting it going on Amazon Linux some time, on a spot instance to start with. If I do I'll send instructions. 

Aredwood:

 

 

 

They are probably intending to sell interruptible load on the electricity reserves market. Which means they need a means of measuring how much controlled load there is, Have the ability to control it, And make it less likely that customers will bypass the load control system. (Requirement that only fixed wired loads can be connected to the controlled meter). So that is why they are only now offering the cheap prices where you have the controlled load going through a dedicated meter.

 

Be thankful that you at least still have a reasonable price gap between uncontrolled and single meter with controlled hot water. In Auckland it is virtually nothing, And they don't offer dual meter plans either in Auckland.

 

Sure, there is a time of use plan available in Auckland. But it's peak rate is way higher than the standard uncontrolled rate. So you have to have very low peak usage to make it worthwhile.

 

AFAIK I don't believe Network companies can participate in the IR market like that (might be wrong). The meters would also need appropriate relays attached to trip in the  event of an under frequency event occurring which would be prohibitively expensive to install.

The idea with the metering though is that it is controlled, usage is supplied overnight and it turns off during the day.

timmmay:

 

Sounds interesting. If I set the system up now will it grab all the data going back to when I started using Flick? Or is it from now on? The Flick console is pretty good, but a bit slow.

 

By default on first run (assuming there are no errors) it will collect all data from the dashboard (i.e. since you joined Flick) and then going forward if you setup a cron job it will run and collect the most recent data since last successful run.