Time to give electricity the flick?

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60 posts

Master Geek
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Reply # 1796972 8-Jun-2017 23:18

Aredwood:

And LPG heating and cooking. So main change is im using the LPG heating far more than electric heating now.

And then there is always my waste oil powered boiler. It gets a bit annoying to use after awhile. But provides all of the radiator central heating, hot water and spa heating I could ever need.

Just curious, what do you heat with an LPG heater, when you already have central heating?

Aredwood

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Reply # 1796988 9-Jun-2017 00:52

Chance of price spikes this Saturday. As HVDC Pole 3 will be on a planned outage. Pole 2 will still be working. But reserve sharing and national frequency keeping will be disabled when the transfer is close to min transfer. This means that more reserves are needed. And since the same generation capacity can't be used to provide scheduled generation and reserves at the same time. There could easily be nasty price spikes. Especially as HVDC flows are often switching between north and south alot.

Also more information about the hydro lake levels.

Some other things to keep in mind (good news).

This winter there is a National market for instantaneous reserves. (commissioned October 2016) And Flick Electric has gained more than 10,000 extra customers between end of April 2016 and end of April 2017. The report into the 2nd June 2016 price spike said that if demand had been just 12MW lower then prices would have been $4,000 per MW cheaper during that spike. And they would have also been far cheaper if the National market for instantaneous reserves has been operating then.

And here is a report into the reasons behind the 21st May 2017 price spike.

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Aredwood

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Reply # 1796989 9-Jun-2017 01:10

@dantheperson My waste oil boiler is homemade and has to be manually lit, and heat output manually adjusted. So it is like a woodfire that only runs a central heating system. The hot water cylinder and spa pool take their heat from the central heating system instead of directly. I can control where the heat goes but that is still with manual valves. It also takes awhile to get everything up to temp, But this is partly due to my hot water cylinder being 300L capacity. Either way it is definitely not as simple as just setting a thermostat and forgetting about it.

The LPG heater is just push a button and it goes. As it is a Rinnai Convector that has max 6.3kW output. So it very quickly gets the room up to temp, and automaticly varies it's output to maintain a constant temp.

So the decision on which to use out of electric, LPG, or oil boiler depends on forecast overnight temps, current and forecast power prices for Flick Electric. (check the NRS and WDS on WITS free to air). If I also want or need lots of hot water or want to use the spa. The spa takes 3 hours to heat up from complete cold, and it can only heat from the boiler. While hot water is affected by amount of solar gain (I also have solar hot water). Or if it is my weekly laundry and cleaning day or not - lots more hot water used.

kingjj

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Reply # 1796990 9-Jun-2017 02:08

As our bills are approaching 3 digits for each week now I did the maths and even with the next closest competitor it still worked out to be at least 7 or 8 dollars per week more. Wont be switching anytime soon unless we get sustained price spikes.

robertsona

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Reply # 1797043 9-Jun-2017 08:33

@EnergyTrader and @Aredwood, I certainly appreciate your insights into the wholesale market events and trends. Do keep them coming!

michaelmurfy

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Reply # 1797046 9-Jun-2017 08:45

Did a calculation with the current pricing and am still $9/wk better off with Flick despite the price spikes. Happy camper here.

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Coon

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Reply # 1797741 10-Jun-2017 15:59

Is there any way to search this thread for keywords?

Pulse salesman offered me 30cents/day fixed and 20.4cents/kWh fixed for a year in Auckland, no contract, 30 days leave notice, sounds too good to be true?

Coon

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Reply # 1797797 10-Jun-2017 18:56

^ plus GST

timmmay

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Reply # 1797804 10-Jun-2017 19:25

Coon:

Is there any way to search this thread for keywords?

Pulse salesman offered me 30cents/day fixed and 20.4cents/kWh fixed for a year in Auckland, no contract, 30 days leave notice, sounds too good to be true?

That's a good daily charge, not sure what Auckland prices are like. It's pretty easy to run the numbers, just work out the Flick average (a guesstimate would work) and multiply it out. Seems reasonable enough. They must be losing money on the daily charge.

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voy1d

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Reply # 1797809 10-Jun-2017 19:49

It will be the low user fixed charge rate.

Coon

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Reply # 1797925 11-Jun-2017 10:10

daily charge 30 cents is same with flick (plus gst so 34.5). compared to flick the 20.4c(plus gst) per kwh means that as long as 20.4<=flick's 13.983c+spot, pulse is cheaper. so as long as spot price is 6.407c/kwh or above, pulse is cheaper

Aredwood

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Reply # 1797973 11-Jun-2017 12:17

Coon: daily charge 30 cents is same with flick (plus gst so 34.5). compared to flick the 20.4c(plus gst) per kwh means that as long as 20.4<=flick's 13.983c+spot, pulse is cheaper. so as long as spot price is 6.407c/kwh or above, pulse is cheaper

Those are definitely good rates. I had the Pulse energy salesman come to my house as well. He claimed that he could beat the pricing of any other power company, even Flick electric. But he still couldn't beat my pricing due to the plan I was on. It was fun seeing his reaction though, when Flick still worked out cheaper for me despite his so called "unbeatable" prices. He also had a company issued tablet running a custom App, that you entered an address into, and it would display details of what power company and plan that house is on currently. Except it didn't work for my address.

Flick could still work out cheaper depending how much of your load you could time shift to offpeak times. Or shift to other energy sources. As even LPG per kW/hr (via 45KG bottles) is cheaper than your lines fees alone. Since you are on low user uncontrolled (also called low user anytime) price plan. But then you have to pay an extra $100 or so per year in bottle rental fees if you do get LPG. Im guessing Natural gas is not available where you are?

Although at the moment Flick is unlikely to be cheaper due to the higher than average spot prices right now. But recheck again during spring. As there will be alot of extra hydro water due to snow melt. And the so called spring rains.

Have you checked that low user plans are correct for your yearly usage? 8000KW/Hr per year / 666KW/Hr per month / 153.8KW/Hr per week / 21.91KW/Hr per day as if you are on the wrong one you will definitely be overpaying.

Coon

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Reply # 1797993 11-Jun-2017 13:03

I'm very low usage, like ~4000-5000 kwh a year. What do you 45KG bottles for, central heating? There is no gas line to the house.

Does Flick have special custom plans beside these? I thought it's just low user or standard? https://www.flickelectric.co.nz/pricing

Aredwood

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Reply # 1798039 11-Jun-2017 14:37

@Coon click on the "download full price schedule" link. And you will see that there is a plan listed called "smart plan option" Im on that plan. You will see that my price is just 4.133c per unit for offpeak + spot price. As Im on standard user. And the inclusive plans are for if you have electric hot water connected to ripple control.

As for LPG consider getting just LPG cooking running from 9KG BBQ bottles. Gas is more expensive but no bottle rental fees. This makes time shifting your power usage easier. As cooking is a large peak load that is not feasible to otherwise time shift. Definitely consider it if you need to replace your stove / hob for another reason.

Sure I have to pay higher lines fees. But it means my marginal cost for energy is far lower. Although my electricity usage fluctuates around the low user / standard user cutoff. So do I take the lower fixed fees, and then either just eat the inflated per unit costs that go with it. And possibly overinvest in measures to reduce my power consumption.

Or just accept higher fixed fees as a fact of life. And enjoy having a cheaper per unit cost. (marginal cost). As the lower marginal cost makes a big difference to those decisions around "should I or shouldn't I" turn on the heater / other appliance or thing that uses power.

I have been burnt before by market changes. I signed up to a 5 year fixed price plan with Contact Energy which was 21.94c per unit for standard user. It was cheaper than what I was paying with Powershop at the time. And I thought that power prices would definitely rise during the 5 year fixed period. (Flick electric didn't exist back then). And that power plans in Auckland would always be same (expensive) per kW/Hr rate of power all day, everyday.

How wrong I turned out to be. As Flick electric is way cheaper than my old fixed price. I also installed solar hot water, while still with Contact. Which gave me good savings then. But the solar hot water is now a stranded asset. As the way cheaper power prices with Flick, mean the payback period is now ridiculously long.

I got a quote to have a solar PV with 2.4KW/Hr of Li-ion battery storage, 3.2KW solar array size, and a 3KW (I think) Inverter. System design claimed 95% self consumption of solar generated power. And batteries had a 10 Year guarantee. But even working on a 10 year payback cycle, it still didn't work out financially to get the system installed. Because it could only save me money during the Peak usage times on the power plan that im on. Which is 40 hours per week out of a total of 168 hours per week. The salesman had to admit that my average per kW/Hr rate was just too cheap for his system to compete.

Coon

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Geek
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Reply # 1798101 11-Jun-2017 16:59

I see, if you can time that peak off peak balance, flick can be cheaper, do you know if Flick's off peak time is based on 11.00am-5pm 9.00pm-7.00am + weekends or if it's based on actual peak and off peak demand?

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