Time to give electricity the flick?

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

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3885 posts

Uber Geek

#1802797 17-Jun-2017 20:56

@easycloud please post the code also. As automating appliances based on the spot price has been on my project to do list for ages.

As I could then integrate it with my LPG heater. So it will automatically switch between electricity and gas for heating depending on which is cheapest.

Himmig

13 posts

Geek

#1802852 18-Jun-2017 04:18

Heya,

I am currently running a beta web app that uses Flick's interface to check your price every x minutes. You can set thresholds and get notified via email, slack or integrate with IFTTT.
Flick apparently will also release a new api sometime

It's built on Joget Workflow 6, which means you can also run it on your own server - happy to share the app file.

http://flick.business-process.net

miked

207 posts

Master Geek

Trusted

#1802913 18-Jun-2017 10:44

@TonyS071

Very interested to hear more about your meter re-configuration. I'm also in Wellington, and the loss of cheap overnight power was a big sting to the previous savings on Flick. If I could get that back, then Flick would make a lot more sense again.

Also has anyone here in Wellington tried Paua-to-the-People? I get the impression they are offering similar model to Flick, but possibly taking a smaller percentage fee... albeit with less support and notifications (which might of course be a positive for some people!)

I'm torn between sticking with Flick, or jumping to another provider. Last week I supposedly saved 7% over previous supplier, but guessing this week won't have been the same... maybe a small loss.... but $600 of savings gives me a good buffer if I end up paying more for a few weeks.

Decisions decisions....

darkasdes2

428 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1802940 18-Jun-2017 12:47

mattrix:

Did you all use the EK referral to get the $50 credit?
If not, some have said you can message them still and say "I forgot to click via my friends referal" and they still do it.

Here's my link anyway:
https://www.electrickiwi.co.nz/go/refer-a-friend?6lJeVjpcH2VzhIvof9nQ2A%3D%3D

I've made an Android app for them as well (allows scheduling different hours for different days, reminders, etc)
http://www.matthuisman.nz/2017/04/electrickiwi-android-app.html

Just changed to EK, used your link, so $50.00 coming your way.

Orion's winter peak and super peak pricing has been killing our savings lately and that's with shifting as much load to off peak time. Got sick of being in a cold house.

easycloud

48 posts

Geek

#1803089 18-Jun-2017 20:31

@Aredwood @mentalinc code is here: https://github.com/mkessas/node-flick

mentalinc

3225 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1803682 19-Jun-2017 21:16

You will have noticed that prices have been higher than normal over the past few weeks. If you’ve got our app, your alerts will have been pinging, and you may have seen some media coverage last week about Dry Winter conditions putting pressure on the hydro lakes.

At Flick, we pride ourselves on giving you absolute transparency around prices, so here we set out what we expect to happen over the coming month or so.

We’re also proud of the massive savings our model delivers to customers - an average of $498 over the past year, with many of our longer term customers having saved over $1,000!

Spot price forecast

Over the past fortnight, the spot price in the upper North Island has sat around 10.8 cents ($0.108).

Our forecast suggests that this will drop to 10.5 cents ($0.105) over the coming month.

We’ll keep updating you on the forecast as these dry conditions continue.

These higher prices follow 102 consecutive weeks of savings that Flick has delivered to Flicksters. So if you can weather a few bad weeks, we know you’ll still be better off in the long run.

How long will high prices last?
History tells us that Dry Winter conditions happen once every four or five years, and last from three to eight weeks, so we expect these conditions to be over by mid-August.

But this could all change suddenly if there’s decent rainfall in the right places in the South Island. There’s rain forecast for later this week, so it seems the mass finger-crossing happening at Flick HQ may be working!

You’re still winning with Flick

Check out how much you’ve saved with Flick. This updates every week when we generate your bill, so it takes into account any weeks where you don’t save.

Know that these higher prices will come to an end. History shows that Dry Winters happen every four to five years and usually last between three and eight weeks, so we expect these conditions to be over by mid-August.

Be a conscious consumer. Over winter we all tend to use more electricity, so higher bills at the moment are a combination of how much you’re using and the price. Even though prices are higher overall at the moment you can still follow the price actively on our app and use those big energy using appliances at cheaper times of the day.

CPU: AMD 5900x | RAM: GSKILL Trident Z Neo RGB F4-3600C16D-32GTZNC-32-GB | MB: Asus X570-E | GFX: EVGA FTW3 Ultra RTX 3080Ti| Monitor: LG 27GL850-B 2560x1440

Quic: https://account.quic.nz/refer/473833 R473833EQKIBX

Aredwood

3885 posts

Uber Geek

#1803729 20-Jun-2017 00:31

@mentalinc Do we need to pre submit questions or just fire away? Just checked the Flick Facebook page but nothing new there yet.

My questions so far:

Do you have a firm date for accepting solar customers or allowing existing customers to get solar?

Will the export price be the spot price as per the wholesale market?

Will you allow export of electricity from any form of generation? Say if I connected a diesel generator to a grid connect inverter.

Any plans to offer price hedging? Even being able to hedge 0.5 or 1KW per hour of usage would have helped me alot through these latest spikes.

[edited to add]

Any plans to offer an official supported device that turns things on and off depending on what the current prices are?

jonathan18

7413 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

#1803766 20-Jun-2017 08:41

@Aredwood - that post is just a copy and paste of the email we Flick customers got yesterday from Flick, so I'm pretty sure metalinc is just posting for information as a customer, not as a representative of Flick.

Which, in itself, raises an interesting point that there doesn't ever seem to have been a Flick representative on GZ; given this site has no doubt been a significant influencer on sign-ups (and now deserters, including me) I'd have thought it could have been good PR for them to have engaged here.

timmmay

20574 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1803784 20-Jun-2017 09:03

I suggested Flick would like to participate on the thread a year or so ago, they said they preferred to be observers.

I don't think I got that email from Flick.

wellygary

8312 posts

Uber Geek

#1803844 20-Jun-2017 09:43

mentalinc:

Spot price forecast

Over the past fortnight, the spot price in the upper North Island has sat around 10.8 cents ($0.108).

Our forecast suggests that this will drop to 10.5 cents ($0.105) over the coming month.

Well given that the thermals are running that is what you would expect,

But the spot prices for anyone on the other side of the HVDC is pretty crushing at the moment....

miked

207 posts

Master Geek

Trusted

#1803845 20-Jun-2017 09:43

No email here yet either.

Sam91

620 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1803852 20-Jun-2017 09:48

Our latest bill - Auckland. We're not going to jump ship though.

timmmay

20574 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1803862 20-Jun-2017 10:03

It's not really the price that made me jump ship, I've saved $1500 with Flick in the past couple of years. The prices are still pretty much comparable with my old power company. I could weather a month or two of higher prices.

It's the significantly increased risk of significant spikes really increasing our bill. It's the lack of communication from Flick about the cause of timeframe of the current situation, which is starting to resolve now. It's the constant annoying alerts from the app. It mostly that I'm tired of having to make decisions based on a variable price that could be high. I really just want to not have to think about power pricing for a while. Plus it's my wife being annoyed about me bugging her when prices are high.

I don't think it'd be fair to go to EK for a month or two. Their prices are fair, and the hour of power is a good way to save. I'll stay with them until there's great reason to move. I'll still try to reduce peak load, things like turning off water heating with the timer, dishwasher and clothes drier at night, because it's no hassle to me and probably saves EK money upstream. I just won't worry quite so much about it.

Aredwood

3885 posts

Uber Geek

#1803864 20-Jun-2017 10:06

I just got my bill as well. I saved the earth shattering amount of 31c or 1% from my previous company.

Average raw wholesale price for me was 9.63c per KW/Hr in Auckland. Bill was still higher than last week despite being for less usage.

mattrix

193 posts

Master Geek
Inactive user

#1803867 20-Jun-2017 10:11

That is why I went with EK instead of Flick when I swapped over a year ago.

The pricing for me worked about the same, but with EK there is just less to worry about.

To me, at the end of the day: less stress > small savings.

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