Time to give electricity the flick?

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#2088109 12-Sep-2018 11:13

nickb800:

kryptonjohn:

Been some political/media brouhaha in the last couple of days, the headline being that power bills have increased by "almost 80% since 1990" e.g. see

https://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/surging-cost-electricity

However, if I use the Reserve Bank's inflation calculator, I see that $1 in Q1 1990 has inflated to $1.77 today. So electricity prices have inflated at almost exactly the CPI rate... doesn't quite make the same impact on a headline.

https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/monetary-policy/inflation-calculator

Also, wages inflated to $2.25 over the same period so power is now effectively cheaper than in 1990.

So much for thoughtful analysis in the media.

That was my thought when I heard on the radio, but I read an article that stated the 80% figure was in excess of inflation

I would have thought that, as I recall a couple of large increases years ago, in the 10% vicinity

kryptonjohn

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#2089155 12-Sep-2018 11:56

nickb800:

Here's the report https://www.mbie.govt.nz/info-services/sectors-industries/energy/electricity-price-review/consultation/first-report.pdf

Interesting titbits:

- Generation (spot prices?) and transmission charges haven't changed much (in inflation adjusted terms) between 1990 and 2018

- Distribution and retail margins account for most of the increase in cost to households over that period - as distribution costs were shifted from large consumers to households, and a large increase in retail margins

Thanks Nick, I see: "After adjusting for inflation, residential prices are 79 per cent higher than in 1990. Since 2000,
New Zealand’s residential prices have risen faster than most other OECD countries."

I stand corrected.

tdgeek

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#2089172 12-Sep-2018 12:00

We have a two tier system, those that seek a good deal and get cheaper power and those that dont who subsidise the first tier. They could not afford to offer everyone the best deal, so if there is more transparency over plans, then those that pay less will pay more and those that pay more will pay less. Bugger.

zerkms

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#2098349 28-Sep-2018 18:58

Does anybody know if a list of recent ripple control power-on/off's publicly available somewhere?

nickb800

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#2098372 28-Sep-2018 20:05

zerkms:
Does anybody know if a list of recent ripple control power-on/off's publicly available somewhere?

Depends on your lines company - Orion in Christchurch has a good page on load management that covers just that. Many have nothing

zerkms

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#2098382 28-Sep-2018 20:34

nickb800:
Depends on your lines company - Orion in Christchurch has a good page on load management that covers just that. Many have nothing

Isn't it done by grid (transpower?)?

tanivula

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#2098407 28-Sep-2018 23:01

zerkms:
nickb800:
Depends on your lines company - Orion in Christchurch has a good page on load management that covers just that. Many have nothing

Isn't it done by grid (transpower?)?

Nah, Transpower don't do load management via ripple control. Done by the distribution networks.

luckiestmanalive

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#2098447 29-Sep-2018 10:21

tdgeek:

We have a two tier system, those that seek a good deal and get cheaper power and those that dont who subsidise the first tier. They could not afford to offer everyone the best deal, so if there is more transparency over plans, then those that pay less will pay more and those that pay more will pay less. Bugger.

It's not really a two-tier system - it's the same system we have for any other produce or service you can think of. Some people pay more than others by virtue of the value they place on the product/service and their proximity to sellers (and other factors). Quality can also be a large influencer of price for lots of products/services (not so much for electricity supply). For example, the price I pay for petrol depends on the location of sellers, how many sellers there are, and the ease with which I can compare them (these factors dictate the potential price spread between different sellers).

Supply of electricity is unique because the Electricity Authority can estimate how much consumers could save if they were on the cheapest plans - is there any other product or service where you can do that? But it gets pretty weird when you consider policies that do more than make it quick and easy for consumers to compare and switch retailers. At the extreme end, the Electricity Authority could automatically switch consumers to the cheapest deal every month!

Hmmmm... actually, maybe this isn't such a bad idea after all! You could sign up to Powerswitch and allow it to have access to your metering data and current retailer and tariff etc. Powerswitch could provide consumers with settings for the automatic switching facility so that it would compare tariffs as often as you specify and offers to switch you only if the estimated saving exceeds a consumer specified threshold. It would have to ask you permission first and you could choose to limit the retailers you are willing to switch between!

tdgeek

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#2098590 29-Sep-2018 18:21

luckiestmanalive:

tdgeek:

We have a two tier system, those that seek a good deal and get cheaper power and those that dont who subsidise the first tier. They could not afford to offer everyone the best deal, so if there is more transparency over plans, then those that pay less will pay more and those that pay more will pay less. Bugger.

It's not really a two-tier system - it's the same system we have for any other produce or service you can think of. Some people pay more than others by virtue of the value they place on the product/service and their proximity to sellers (and other factors). Quality can also be a large influencer of price for lots of products/services (not so much for electricity supply). For example, the price I pay for petrol depends on the location of sellers, how many sellers there are, and the ease with which I can compare them (these factors dictate the potential price spread between different sellers).

Supply of electricity is unique because the Electricity Authority can estimate how much consumers could save if they were on the cheapest plans - is there any other product or service where you can do that? But it gets pretty weird when you consider policies that do more than make it quick and easy for consumers to compare and switch retailers. At the extreme end, the Electricity Authority could automatically switch consumers to the cheapest deal every month!

Hmmmm... actually, maybe this isn't such a bad idea after all! You could sign up to Powerswitch and allow it to have access to your metering data and current retailer and tariff etc. Powerswitch could provide consumers with settings for the automatic switching facility so that it would compare tariffs as often as you specify and offers to switch you only if the estimated saving exceeds a consumer specified threshold. It would have to ask you permission first and you could choose to limit the retailers you are willing to switch between!

It is a two tier system. Those that know, those that dont

luckiestmanalive

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#2098606 29-Sep-2018 19:32

I thought it was those that "seek a good deal" and those that don't? And if so, what about those that seek a better deal but not the best deal?

Some people rule out certain retailers even if that means paying a bit more. For example, they might prefer Meridian Energy because they have all renewable sources of generation. Or they might not trust new retailers.

Are these people in the "seek a good deal' category or those that don't? I mean, they are seeking a good deal but they are still paying more than they need to...

Maybe the distinction is between those that are on the best deal available and those that are not? I'd agree with that but that was what my post was about so now I"m not sure what you are trying to say.

tdgeek

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#2098651 29-Sep-2018 20:20

luckiestmanalive:

I thought it was those that "seek a good deal" and those that don't? And if so, what about those that seek a better deal but not the best deal?

Some people rule out certain retailers even if that means paying a bit more. For example, they might prefer Meridian Energy because they have all renewable sources of generation. Or they might not trust new retailers.

Are these people in the "seek a good deal' category or those that don't? I mean, they are seeking a good deal but they are still paying more than they need to...

Maybe the distinction is between those that are on the best deal available and those that are not? I'd agree with that but that was what my post was about so now I"m not sure what you are trying to say.

Take a Telco. Its $x for Unlimited. The next telco is $x for unlimited. Its black and white. Power company plan pages are far from that simple. So they remove a lot of decision making by a lot pf people as its too messy. Someone here said Genesis had this and that.I went there. Very unclear. Flick you need to get the download to work out the end price

Aredwood

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#2098654 29-Sep-2018 20:40

Actually there are some differences with internet access. Peering and IPv6 being 2 examples that relate to the physical connection.

As for power, your lines company controlls getting power to your house. So changing power companies doesn't affect how many power cuts you get, or how stable the voltage is etc.

I don't get as to why power company pricing plans are difficult to understand. Just look at your bill. Check what plan you are on (equivalent to seeing if you are on ADSL, VDSL, UFB etc) Check if you are Standard user or Low user. Then you know what prices to compare with.

At least companies are being transparent, if they just publish all of their rates on their website. Electric Kiwi and Pulse Energy for example, won't tell you any prices until you tell them your address. But EK look up who your current power company is, and give you different rates depending on which power company currently supplies you.

Delphinus

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#2098656 29-Sep-2018 20:52

At least companies are being transparent, if they just publish all of their rates on their website. Electric Kiwi and Pulse Energy for example, won't tell you any prices until you tell them your address. But EK look up who your current power company is, and give you different rates depending on which power company currently supplies you.

I just tried looking up a few different addresses in my city and sure enough different pricing. Both low user, incl GST I'm getting 20.94c per Kwh vs 22.56c for the place next door.

tdgeek

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#2098659 29-Sep-2018 21:03

Aredwood:

I don't get as to why power company pricing plans are difficult to understand. Just look at your bill.

No problem with the bill. daily charge, kWh charge, easy. When I go to Genesis, there is a myriad of plans, some joined (thats ok) I dunno what half of all the others means. I can't find a description of that. I have two degrees, I'm not dumb, but I could not find a laymans description of what I wanted to know, meant.

The pricing I got told here is not on there. It was off-peak weeknights and not at 11pm, and off offpeak weekends, but the times did not match. If I was Joe Normal id just stay with Acme Electric.

Scott3

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#2098665 29-Sep-2018 22:35

Aredwood:

I don't get as to why power company pricing plans are difficult to understand. Just look at your bill. Check what plan you are on (equivalent to seeing if you are on ADSL, VDSL, UFB etc) Check if you are Standard user or Low user. Then you know what prices to compare with.

I would expect people using geekzone would as a group sit at the higher end of the population with regard to numeracy.

Last time I went power company shopping it was fairly involved to get the optimal plan (actually I was changing away from flick, so I didn't need to form an estimate for them).

Basic tasks:

Dig out an old bill, form a rough estimate of annual usage.
Get pricing info from all the main players. - some companies don't make this easy, and others offer many different plans. Some want an email address for pricing. Others require you start the application process, to get a price. Some will contact you (phone / email) with a better offer if you abandon your cart.
Normalise the pricing. (work out the out of pocket cost for a average month), deduct prompt payment discounts if available, add gst if not included.

Nothing too difficult, but does consume a bit of time, and take the confidence to either phone around power companies, or fill out online forms (and give up private information) just to get pricing - abandoning your application).

Maths isn't too hard, but anything that involves a calculator or spread sheet seems to exclude a decent chunk of the population. Manipulating percentages (GST & prompt payment discounts) seems to knock out another chunk...

I can see how a decent chunk of the market gets taken advantage of.

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