Time to give electricity the flick?

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

1 | ... | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69 | 70 | 71 | 72 | 73 | 74 | ... | 132

50 posts

Geek
+1 received by user: 6

#1821368 12-Jul-2017 16:45

Lostja: I'm not even getting notifications through the app.. anyone else has that problem?

App has never once notified me of anything.

It is predicting $1.21 at 5pm though!!!!

kingjj

1728 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 445

ID Verified

Trusted

#1821377 12-Jul-2017 16:58

al8565:

Lostja: I'm not even getting notifications through the app.. anyone else has that problem?

App has never once notified me of anything.

It is predicting $1.21 at 5pm though!!!!

Ouch!!

On my MIL's:

We reckon that your price at
5:00pm will be 124¢ per unit.

Edit at 1702:

Himmig

13 posts

Geek

#1821429 12-Jul-2017 17:47

If you have problems getting notifications about these crazy prices, I currently run a free web app that works quite reliable now (I had the same issue with not getting notifications).

Just go to flick.business-process.net

If you happen to have devices with IFTTT support you can get them turned off if the price goes over a threshold you define. For me 40 cents is kind of the regular cut off threshold for my less efficient plug in heaters, so the heatpump has to do more work.

Prices are really hard to swallow at the moment when things started to get better. Electric Kiwi must be quite on the edge because the spot price must have hurt them pretty hard being a relatively new business as well.

pogo

84 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 9

#1821493 12-Jul-2017 20:03

$4,000 up north???

dantheperson

175 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 42

#1821517 12-Jul-2017 20:34

em6 shows $40,000 at 6pm. 24K right now.

tdgeek

29819 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 9155

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1821529 12-Jul-2017 21:02

Himmig: If you have problems getting notifications about these crazy prices, I currently run a free web app that works quite reliable now (I had the same issue with not getting notifications).

Just go to flick.business-process.net

If you happen to have devices with IFTTT support you can get them turned off if the price goes over a threshold you define. For me 40 cents is kind of the regular cut off threshold for my less efficient plug in heaters, so the heatpump has to do more work.

Prices are really hard to swallow at the moment when things started to get better. Electric Kiwi must be quite on the edge because the spot price must have hurt them pretty hard being a relatively new business as well.

Remember they are a billing company, your paying the spot price plus their margin. However, they will be affected by churn, as reflected on this and the EK thread.

Sam91

620 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 183

#1821554 12-Jul-2017 22:21

tdgeek:

Himmig: If you have problems getting notifications about these crazy prices, I currently run a free web app that works quite reliable now (I had the same issue with not getting notifications).

Just go to flick.business-process.net

If you happen to have devices with IFTTT support you can get them turned off if the price goes over a threshold you define. For me 40 cents is kind of the regular cut off threshold for my less efficient plug in heaters, so the heatpump has to do more work.

Prices are really hard to swallow at the moment when things started to get better. Electric Kiwi must be quite on the edge because the spot price must have hurt them pretty hard being a relatively new business as well.

Remember they are a billing company, your paying the spot price plus their margin. However, they will be affected by churn, as reflected on this and the EK thread.

Are you referring to Flick or EK? You're right about Flick simply being hit by churn. The quoted poster was referring to EK.

Electric Kiwi are charging a fixed rate, so when the spot price is low, they win, but when the spot price is high, they lose. It seems as though they've seen a huge increase in customers this winter, but it's the type of customers that's important. Electric Kiwi is relying on these customers staying long term in order for them to be profitable customers. The problem is, many of these customers will simply jump ship once these crazy prices have settled. As a result, Electric Kiwi has absorbed the high spot prices for these customers, and will not recoup these losses. Additionally, the "hour of power" during these high spot prices will exacerbate this problem. Sure it might not bankrupt the company, but it will definitely hurt them.

That's my understanding, I could be completely misunderstanding how pricing works, happy to be corrected.

Aredwood

3885 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 1749

#1821588 13-Jul-2017 02:20

Sam91:

tdgeek:

Himmig: If you have problems getting notifications about these crazy prices, I currently run a free web app that works quite reliable now (I had the same issue with not getting notifications).

Just go to flick.business-process.net

If you happen to have devices with IFTTT support you can get them turned off if the price goes over a threshold you define. For me 40 cents is kind of the regular cut off threshold for my less efficient plug in heaters, so the heatpump has to do more work.

Prices are really hard to swallow at the moment when things started to get better. Electric Kiwi must be quite on the edge because the spot price must have hurt them pretty hard being a relatively new business as well.

Remember they are a billing company, your paying the spot price plus their margin. However, they will be affected by churn, as reflected on this and the EK thread.

Are you referring to Flick or EK? You're right about Flick simply being hit by churn. The quoted poster was referring to EK.

Electric Kiwi are charging a fixed rate, so when the spot price is low, they win, but when the spot price is high, they lose. It seems as though they've seen a huge increase in customers this winter, but it's the type of customers that's important. Electric Kiwi is relying on these customers staying long term in order for them to be profitable customers. The problem is, many of these customers will simply jump ship once these crazy prices have settled. As a result, Electric Kiwi has absorbed the high spot prices for these customers, and will not recoup these losses. Additionally, the "hour of power" during these high spot prices will exacerbate this problem. Sure it might not bankrupt the company, but it will definitely hurt them.

That's my understanding, I could be completely misunderstanding how pricing works, happy to be corrected.

Electric Kiwi almost certainly have hedging in place to cover most of their risk for buying power. Of course I don't know how much hedging they have, Is only for peak times or all times, how long their hedge contracts run for ect. But even if EK are fully covered by hedge contracts, the other party to those contracts will be making a loss. As instead of being able to sell at really high prices to the spot market, they instead have to honour a previously agreed much lower sale price to EK. (the simple way to think of hedging is to think of it like insurance against price movements)

Of course EK would have purchased their hedge contracts well in advance of this winter, so probably got them at good prices. They will only cover up to a certain amount of usage. So no surprises if EK have stopped accepting new customers, as they will be worried about going over the amount of hedging that they have. But trying to purchase hedging right now will be far more expensive. (even for winter next year). I will do a bigger write up on this in the Flick thread.

tdgeek

29819 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 9155

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1821594 13-Jul-2017 06:18

Sam91:

tdgeek:

Himmig: If you have problems getting notifications about these crazy prices, I currently run a free web app that works quite reliable now (I had the same issue with not getting notifications).

Just go to flick.business-process.net

If you happen to have devices with IFTTT support you can get them turned off if the price goes over a threshold you define. For me 40 cents is kind of the regular cut off threshold for my less efficient plug in heaters, so the heatpump has to do more work.

Prices are really hard to swallow at the moment when things started to get better. Electric Kiwi must be quite on the edge because the spot price must have hurt them pretty hard being a relatively new business as well.

Remember they are a billing company, your paying the spot price plus their margin. However, they will be affected by churn, as reflected on this and the EK thread.

Are you referring to Flick or EK? You're right about Flick simply being hit by churn. The quoted poster was referring to EK.

Electric Kiwi are charging a fixed rate, so when the spot price is low, they win, but when the spot price is high, they lose. It seems as though they've seen a huge increase in customers this winter, but it's the type of customers that's important. Electric Kiwi is relying on these customers staying long term in order for them to be profitable customers. The problem is, many of these customers will simply jump ship once these crazy prices have settled. As a result, Electric Kiwi has absorbed the high spot prices for these customers, and will not recoup these losses. Additionally, the "hour of power" during these high spot prices will exacerbate this problem. Sure it might not bankrupt the company, but it will definitely hurt them.

That's my understanding, I could be completely misunderstanding how pricing works, happy to be corrected.

Apologies, I was referring to Flick, this being the Flick thread, but I thought he was referring to Flick. "these crazy prices" "For me 40 cents is kind of the regular cut off threshold"

I went to EK last night, no issue, but I feel they may be cutting back on Flick to EK joinups.

I dont feel the free hour with EK exacerbates the price problem for EK. They are allowing users to shift usage from peak to off-peak, which means they will have to pay less peak prices for the same kW usage in any given day. In fact if they gave 2 free hours that may even benefit them more, as heating wise we can use off-peak in the morning and evening for heating.

jamesrobert

90 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 25

#1821636 13-Jul-2017 09:21

2 free hours?

Yes please!

tdgeek

29819 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 9155

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1821643 13-Jul-2017 09:30

jamesrobert: 2 free hours?

Yes please!

It does sound greedy, but it helps EK avoid high peak prices, they would pay lower off peak.

As they are innovative, like Flick, an option might be an extra free hour if you reach 12 months with them, or if you commit to 12 months. That would also help them average out the users annual usage, and avoid short term ex Flick users being subsidised, who are likely to jump back

surfisup1000

5288 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 2158

#1821645 13-Jul-2017 09:34

High prices mean that companies will be building new generation right? Which in turn will moderate pricing.

I thought that was the idea of our electricity pricing model.

tdgeek

29819 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 9155

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1821667 13-Jul-2017 10:25

surfisup1000:

High prices mean that companies will be building new generation right? Which in turn will moderate pricing.

I thought that was the idea of our electricity pricing model.

If a few hundred million was spent, maybe more, that has a cost. ROI has to be met to cover the financial cost of using those funds, and the fixed costs to run it. If that is only of use for days or a few weeks at a time, thats not efficient. Its like buying a car to use 2 weeks a year, better to face the high 2 week costs

dolsen

1477 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 310

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1821703 13-Jul-2017 10:53

surfisup1000:

High prices mean that companies will be building new generation right? Which in turn will moderate pricing.

I thought that was the idea of our electricity pricing model.

This was an interesting read.

http://www.geoffbertram.com/fileadmin/publications/Bertram%20final.pdf

Sam91

620 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 183

#1821711 13-Jul-2017 11:04

Aredwood:

Electric Kiwi almost certainly have hedging in place to cover most of their risk for buying power. Of course I don't know how much hedging they have, Is only for peak times or all times, how long their hedge contracts run for ect. But even if EK are fully covered by hedge contracts, the other party to those contracts will be making a loss. As instead of being able to sell at really high prices to the spot market, they instead have to honour a previously agreed much lower sale price to EK. (the simple way to think of hedging is to think of it like insurance against price movements)

Of course EK would have purchased their hedge contracts well in advance of this winter, so probably got them at good prices. They will only cover up to a certain amount of usage. So no surprises if EK have stopped accepting new customers, as they will be worried about going over the amount of hedging that they have. But trying to purchase hedging right now will be far more expensive. (even for winter next year). I will do a bigger write up on this in the Flick thread.

Makes sense that they wouldn't carry that risk themselves. Thanks for the explanation.

tdgeek:

I dont feel the free hour with EK exacerbates the price problem for EK. They are allowing users to shift usage from peak to off-peak, which means they will have to pay less peak prices for the same kW usage in any given day. In fact if they gave 2 free hours that may even benefit them more, as heating wise we can use off-peak in the morning and evening for heating.

My mistake, I thought you could specify any hour (even peak hours) as your hour of power. I agree with you, but that's only if people shift their normal usage to the hour of power. As we've already seen, people see it as a challenge to use as much power as possible. For example, you may normally run one heater, but with the hour of power you decide to run one in every room of the house.

1 | ... | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69 | 70 | 71 | 72 | 73 | 74 | ... | 132