Time to give electricity the flick?

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

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#1307660 19-May-2015 10:31

cyberhub: Interesting, I have been a big fan of Powershop for ages, I really like their online and iphone app. It is cool how you can prepay for your power etc. Seemed like the only power company embracing technology and trying to empower their end users.

Flick is also up and coming in this area, empowering consumers, technology to make it easier will follow.

Unsure how prepaying things is new or cool. The active management of a passive utility, ie Powershop, never appealed to me.

timmmay

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#1308121 20-May-2015 07:42

My meter was upgraded to a smart meter yesterday, as a result of my joining Flick through a beta program. I think it was a company called Wells. Nice guy, had it done in an hour with no fuss. It can give you some interesting information - voltage, power draw, power factor, etc. Apparently it will start reporting live stats via the flick website in a few days.

Should the installer have left an electrical certificate of compliance?

miked

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#1308246 20-May-2015 10:22

I signed up just before midnight on Monday... and they then brought out a $75 cashback deal yesterday! Grrrr! I'll have to see if they will match the deal since they haven't processed the application yet.

Anyway, if you were thinking of signing up anyway, then you might as well grab the $75 deal. Not sure how long it is on for.
www.flickelectric.co.nz

Mike

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#1308251 20-May-2015 10:29

They replied on my query on Facebook to say that someone will call me later today.

Their social media team are clearly responsive! (Tick)

I guess I now get to try out their ability to follow up on promised call-backs, and also see how good their overall customer service is....

Will report back with conclusion....

Mike

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#1308258 20-May-2015 10:40

Their entire company seems responsive - I'm in touch with their GM of Operations during the switchover, and even their founder from time to time. They're pretty much a startup as far as I can tell.

miked

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#1308351 20-May-2015 11:55

Cool. Just got my phone call from a very helpful lady at Flick.

They are honouring the $75 cashback deal (paid in 3 months time back into my bank account).

They are also sending me a Free T-Shirt. That's pretty cool...

First contacts with Flick have been very positive so far. They have ticked all the boxes for me!

Mike

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#1308876 20-May-2015 21:22

Signed up to FlickElectric online from Genesis today. Still keeping gas with Genesis. I hope Genesis does not automatically cuts off my gas altogether along with my electricity.

Do whatever you want to do man.

miked

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#1308900 20-May-2015 21:55

Wow. Just saw this other thread http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=141&topicid=173373

Ecoisme is an Indiegogo project to make a sensor that can reclognise specific items from their current drain and spectral profile, so that it the sensor knows what is on and off when! Therefore it is able to gives you warnings if you left the fridge door open, or your left the iron turned on. As I said over in that thread, this could be VERY useful for those of us on Flick. If we were able to correlate the data from Flick with the data from this device, we'd be able to see the true cost of any item over a period of time, and see what time shifting it or reducing its usage would achieve.

We should probably keep discussion about that device in the other thread, and keep this one for discussion about Flick itself, but I thought I'd mention it here, as Flick users are likely to be the sort of people who'd be interested in such a device!

Mike

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#1309071 21-May-2015 08:50

Does anyone have a good way of monitoring power prices? Nodewatch is ok, but there are too many emails - power prices fluctuate too much. EMS is ok, but doesn't have much detail. An app or website would be nice.

Shame Flick can't do this yet.

miked

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#1310221 23-May-2015 00:13

Had my email to say the switch to Flick happened today, and they are creating my online account. (Haven't got the login details yet though).

Surprised I didn't get a begging call from Mercury trying to keep me, but happy to not have been bothered or held up in transferring.

Can't wait to see what we get shown online by Flick (although implication from others is it isn't as much as they hoped for!), and then start I can working out ways to make the spot price more easily available to the whole house!

As I said previously, I'd love to make a little arduino unit with simple screen showing the Spot Price in big numbers, and a traffic light colour system for at a glance overview:

Flashing Red = VERY expensive (turn off everything possible!)
Red = expensive (avoid using big electricity consuming goods)
Orange = Typical "average" price
Green = Cheaper than usual
Flashing Green = Absolute Bargain prices.... (time to run the dishwasher!)

Of course, I would need to define those ranges myself from experience (what price cut-off gets which colour). Also I would need to factor in the smart plan pricing where the network fees per unit are cheaper from 11pm - 7am (I think), which is an extra bonus on the cheaper wholesale price during those hours. So would probably factor those in to create a total actual cost per KWh which was shown on the screen.

Of course, all of this is dependant on finding a place I can scrape such info from live! The strength of having such a device readout in the house is if I can get it to display the live price within a few minutes of the half hour starting, so I know what price I am paying immediately and can respond accordingly. Does anyone know if this is possible?

I'm presuming that as long as the wholesale price is published somewhere online, I will be able to work out the rest! (thinking of using the Oak - (Cheap Wifi Arduino), as I have a few of them on order - due in Sept). Crash course in Arduino coding and wiring will be on the agenda I think!

Mike

richms

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#1310223 23-May-2015 00:21

timmmay: My meter was upgraded to a smart meter yesterday, as a result of my joining Flick through a beta program. I think it was a company called Wells. Nice guy, had it done in an hour with no fuss. It can give you some interesting information - voltage, power draw, power factor, etc. Apparently it will start reporting live stats via the flick website in a few days.

Unfortunately its only available on the crappy little non backlit LCD screen in a tiny box outside in the cold and rain when you want it to be visiable from inside or charted etc.

No plans to open it up despite a plethora of RJ11 looking connectors under the cover of the meter which I am sure one must have a serial stream of all that data. There is also an optical port but noone has been able to say 100% if that is available on the locally sold ones or is just an empty hole so im not keen on getting the corresponding magnetically attaching reader for it in case its just an empty hole.

timmmay: Should the installer have left an electrical certificate of compliance?

I was advised that the work on their network which the power meter is part of doesnt require them to complete that, but they do a metering cert sticker which was completed.

Richard rich.ms

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#1310308 23-May-2015 09:20

I would rarely want to look at the meter. It can tell me basics like voltage, power consumed (just a single number), etc. I don't think that's really all that helpful most of the time.

I switched over earlier this week, but still nothing on their website. I don't know if I'm being charged the spot price or if I'm still on flat rate. I could ask, they reply quickly.

It would be nice to know the current power price, maybe via a widget on my phone.

timmmay

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#1310349 23-May-2015 11:17

I got some alerts on Nodewatch - the price of power in the North Island is around triple that of the south island. This is unusual, usually it's cheapest down south where there's lots of generation and most expensive up north, but there's usually around 20% in it. There seems to be plenty of power flowing between islands. For some reason power has gotten really expensive in the NI.

The second screenshot shows that demand has spiked in the NI, but stayed flat down south.

Graphs from EM6Live.

k1wi

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#1310351 23-May-2015 11:26

I believe Pole 2 of the HVDC link is currently on a planned outage:

http://www.systemoperator.co.nz/sites/default/files/interfaces/can/CAN%20Planned%20Outage%20HVDC%20Pole%202%201756135629.pdf

timmmay

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#1310352 23-May-2015 11:29

Interesting, thanks. So delay power intensive activities until after 4pm then.

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