Electric Kiwi Pricing Up 14%

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#2897246 5-Apr-2022 16:11

We've shifted from Electric Kiwi to Contact Energy with their sign up bonus.

3 hours Free power from 9pm-12:59pm.

Happy with the switch.

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rayonline

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#2897250 5-Apr-2022 16:26

jonathan18:

rayonline:

Question - how do you guys workaround so you benefit with the free periods? I have read about how people organise their showers, cooking, dishwasher and laundry. I have also read extreme percentages used in the free periods like 50-75%. Are you guys mostly a household that runs on electricity only? Are you mainly at school and work during the daytime? Do you use minimal heating until the free periods?

We're with EK so only have the hour to make use of, but given the relative timing of this it's probably more valuable than three hours at a less useful time (This may possibly change when we get a second EV.)

Most of the time we have our hour set for 6-7am: all-house heating with a ducted heat pump starts then and continues on as long as it's needed (and turned on again in the evening), and my wife's Leaf charges solely for that one hour period (usually all it needs). Set the washing machine and dish washer as well. Have gas hot water so no benefits there. Our hour of free power makes up 25-40% of our daily electricity usage (but this doesn't take into account gas for water and hob).

It's very little effort to do these things, and yet the savings are substantial. I imagine we'd not get the same benefit if we chose to run the heater overnight (as it's heating a cold house at 6am, as opposed to maintaining a set temp).

The savings generally they are for those who are at work or school right? Not for those who work at home, or those who are retired. They would be using energy to cook, clean, and heating during the day at home. Would that be a correct assumption generally? Those who are at home daily would see less savings.

Stu

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#2897251 5-Apr-2022 16:32

We're looking at the Electric Kiwi MoveMaster plan, as it looks good for people who work from home. It appears that you still get the Hour of Power on top of the off-peak and off-peak shoulder rates.

ETA: We had considered the Contact Energy plan with 3 hours free each night, but they seem to think we don't have a compatible Smart Meter capable of polling data at half hourly intervals, even though our current supplier (Mercury) seems to be able to display our data in half hourly blocks?

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jonathan18

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#2897254 5-Apr-2022 16:57

rayonline:

The savings generally they are for those who are at work or school right? Not for those who work at home, or those who are retired. They would be using energy to cook, clean, and heating during the day at home. Would that be a correct assumption generally? Those who are at home daily would see less savings.

I think it really depends on so many variables, such as the specifics of a household, eg the proportion of people at home during the day, plus other things like time of year. In winter it'll be heavily affected by heating - how much of your house you heat, for what hours, to what temperature and what you use to heat it...

I'm having to WFH at the moment, and my wife's similarly WFH much of the last 4-6 weeks, and I've not noticed an appreciable increase in our bill - but that increased usage amounts to not much more than running a couple of computers and screens, a few LED lights, and a bit of power for cooking. Even during lockdowns, with all four of us home all day every day, we continued to still see decent savings in that hour.

As such, I think the best way to determine how it'll work for you is to look closely at your electricity usage, including looking at how much you already use in any of the periods that free power is available. Then have a thing about what power usage across the day you can shift to this period, and also how easily you can do (and are willing to do) this.

vexxxboy

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#2897257 5-Apr-2022 17:13

i had Contact Energy ring me on a cold call to save money on my power bill. i am with pulse and said good luck . The lady went through the plan to compare the two and at the end all she said was how is pulse doing it that cheap and pretty much hung up, in fact every company that has called me havent come close to what Pulse gives me and i would switch in a heartbeat if someone was cheaper.. Just a thought to people who want cheap power, look at pulse if they are in your Area.

Common sense is not as common as you think.

timmmay

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#2897258 5-Apr-2022 17:13

rayonline:

This the more recent thread covering Electric Kiwi (and Contact Energy). These companies provide free periods daily for electricity.

Question - how do you guys workaround so you benefit with the free periods? I have read about how people organise their showers, cooking, dishwasher and laundry. I have also read extreme percentages used in the free periods like 50-75%. Are you guys mostly a household that runs on electricity only? Are you mainly at school and work during the daytime? Do you use minimal heating until the free periods?

We are in Wellington but we have gas for cooking and hot water. They at home all day and are foodies so they use gas to cook for all 3 meals. When it is needed they would use the heatpump on after 5 or 6PM.

50 - 75% free takes extreme effort. I can do about 20 - 25% free hour in winter at 5am and that's with timers on hot water, both heat pumps, clothes drier some days, office fan heater, dishwasher. Without timers you'd probably do an evening hour and just turn everything on.

One example to optimise on the EK MoveMaster plan is you turn heating on at 4pm rather than 5pm or 6pm so the house is warmed up on the slightly lower rate.

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timmmay

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#2897259 5-Apr-2022 17:16

Stu:

We're looking at the Electric Kiwi MoveMaster plan, as it looks good for people who work from home. It appears that you still get the Hour of Power on top of the off-peak and off-peak shoulder rates.

ETA: We had considered the Contact Energy plan with 3 hours free each night, but they seem to think we don't have a compatible Smart Meter capable of polling data at half hourly intervals, even though our current supplier (Mercury) seems to be able to display our data in half hourly blocks?

I can confirm you still get the free hour. I've been on MoveMaster for a couple of days, early indications are that we might drop from about $9.70 per day to about $7 per day on warmer days. On cooler days I would expect more savings as we time shift some heating outside the peak time, and even peak cost is lower than the last plan. Though we did get a 10% top-up bonus on the last plan, I think our savings will be more than that, maybe 25% over the last plan.

wonderstuff

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#2897274 5-Apr-2022 18:22

Stu:

ETA: We had considered the Contact Energy plan with 3 hours free each night, but they seem to think we don't have a compatible Smart Meter capable of polling data at half hourly intervals, even though our current supplier (Mercury) seems to be able to display our data in half hourly blocks?

All smart meters can provide data at half hourly intervals, unless you are on a peripherally area with challenging cellular communications.

My guess, is that Contact has not implemented a data importer for your MEP (Meter Equipment Provider).

timmmay

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#2897278 5-Apr-2022 18:38

I worked out that today on EK MoveMaster my average price per kwh is 12.9c, counting the free hour. Not bad :)

Rushmere

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#2897281 5-Apr-2022 18:53

Stu:

ETA: We had considered the Contact Energy plan with 3 hours free each night, but they seem to think we don't have a compatible Smart Meter capable of polling data at half hourly intervals, even though our current supplier (Mercury) seems to be able to display our data in half hourly blocks?

I get exactly the same message, even though I had a new smart meter installed about 6 months ago (replacing an older, but still fully capable smart meter). I wonder if there’s an issue with their website?

boosacnoodle

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#2897288 5-Apr-2022 19:24

If you're on Move Master, you may want to do a price check with Powerswitch. They changed the prices in December and didn't move me over to the new pricing, even though it would've been less. Pretty dodgy given they don't advertise it as a fixed price plan! I'm sure if the price went up they would've moved me.

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Stu

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#2897290 5-Apr-2022 19:28

Powerswitch has suggested MoveMaker as the top option for us. Just need to confirm if controlled and uncontrolled rates apply, as the EK plans on the website don't reflect this.

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timmmay

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#2897315 5-Apr-2022 20:20

I looked at MoveMaster when it was announced but from memory the rates were really high - from memory maybe around 30c/kwh. I only looked again because PowerSwitch said it should be the cheapest for us, and that wasn't even taking into account that we can time shift quite a bit of our usage. EK looked at my half hourly usage for a month and confirmed it would be a better plan for me.

Wheelbarrow01

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#2897350 5-Apr-2022 21:37

Stu:

We're looking at the Electric Kiwi MoveMaster plan, as it looks good for people who work from home. It appears that you still get the Hour of Power on top of the off-peak and off-peak shoulder rates.

ETA: We had considered the Contact Energy plan with 3 hours free each night, but they seem to think we don't have a compatible Smart Meter capable of polling data at half hourly intervals, even though our current supplier (Mercury) seems to be able to display our data in half hourly blocks?

A couple of months ago we moved from EK's anytime plan to the MoveMaster, and at the same time I started manually turning our hot water off at 7am, and turning it back on at 11pm (with hour of power set for 11pm).

It has literally halved our bill (from approx $120-140 a fortnight down to $60-70 a fortnight), proving conclusively that water heating forms a big part of our usage. I'll probably get a proper timer installed soon, but I wanted to see if it actually made a difference first. My sparky mate said it probably wouldn't but he was wrong...

We are on the low user plan so the coming hikes to the fixed charge will have a big impact on us. But we have a ULEB log burner for winter heating so winter power bills for us are roughly the same as summer.

michaelmurfy

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#2897362 5-Apr-2022 23:49

Something else to note also is Contact have a higher kWh charge so depending on your normal use the Good Nights plan may well work out more expensive.

Good Nights (incl GST):
Charged: Midnight - 9pm 30.82c/kWh
Free: 9pm - Midnight Free
Daily Charge 1.133c/day
Electricity Authority Levy 0.15c/kWh

EK Movemaster (incl GST - plus an hour free):
Peak usage: $0.2949 per kWh
Off-peak shoulder usage: $0.2138 per kWh
Off-peak night usage: $0.1475 per kWh
Fixed cost of: $1.5600 per day

Contact also have a fixed term meaning if power prices go down you'll still be paying the higher kWh charge - I've always personally found EK OK when it comes towards pricing and they do seem to be the lowest cost provider for my use - I got a notification that 83.37% of my power use falls during off-peak, plus it is nicer having the shoulder use as I normally work from home. So don't fall for the 3hrs free if you're a higher user as you'll often find it hard to move power use to the 3 hours to off-set the higher kWh charge.

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