Yes I've used this website & switched to Electric Kiwi.
Plenty of others on Flick here at Geekzone.

I do find that it pays to put your actual usage and costs into a spreadsheet (or otherwise) to compare as my rates on my bill have differed with their kW charges.
This is normally because I've signed a negotiated deal or contract in are in some none standard rate.

I look closely at those who are offering the best savings and have changed after researching those offers in depth.
Note: because Flick has peak and off peak rates comparing there savings to your current offer is hard.

Electric kiwi with its free hour of power is easy to estimate savings, but still needs a little more thinking.

I've switched to Electric Kiwi let are happy so far. Saved quite a bit as the are the lowest kW charges in my area and then I get my free power as  well.
If you do decide on Electric Kiwi I have a promo code of for Electric Kiwi that if you use you get $50 off your power bill (and so do I). 
PM me if interested 

I second putting values into a spreadsheet, when I last checked my figures against what's my number, the pricing for my then current provider was miles out.

The problem with such sites, is how often they are updated. There used to be one for ISPs created by consumer, but it didn't last too long before it disappeared. I suspect it is just too difficult to keep it updated..

No.

Usually the amounts are too small to make the hassle worthwhile IMV.

It would help if all the companies were made to update their pricing for the same date every year - otherwise, what is cheaper this month may not be cheaper next month and so on since they all change at different times!

Don't ever use Whatsmynumber. As how is it supposed to be able to calculate your savings when it doesn't know how much power you use. As it doesn't ask for your usage information.

Use Powerswitch.co.nz or switchme.co.nz instead.

Powerswitch takes a months usage and answers to some demographic questions and tries to calculate your yearly usage. Which for me at least always gets it very wrong. Therefore Powerswitch is much more accurate if you know the total number of units of power you have used over the previous 12months.

Switchme takes 1 month of usage and tells you what you would have paid for that month from all of the different power companies. But it is a good idea to run both a summer bill and a winter bill through Switchme. As different usage amounts will almost always give different recommendations. Switchme doesn't have Flick electric or Electric Kiwi in it's results. So not good.

Also check if you should be on a standard user or a low user plan. Standard user is more than 8000 units/year which is 666 units per month. If you use less than 666 units per month during summer but more than 666 units per month during winter. Also consider if you want max savings during summer or during winter. For alot of people in this situation Standard user is better so they get max winter savings. Which means less winter bill shock. Even though this means overpaying during Summer, the lower summer usage means it is easier to afford. Compared to very large winter bills.

You may not even need to formally start the switching process - even just a call to your provider may elicit a better and competitive deal than you've currently got.

I've done this over the last week with two other utilities - we get our gas through Nova, who when I rang up provided us with the same deal as they're offering new customers, which is significantly cheaper than our current rates (and with the option of either an open contract or a fixed contract and $50 credit).

Also, I rang Vodafone on behalf of my mother - in just pointing out how uncompetitive their current charges were, the retention team reduced the cost of her phone/internet package by $36 a month (to a rate no other reputable company was able to match).

Flick - lowest price for many, with the highest risk of unexpected bills.

Electric Kiwi - good rates (which they hide on their website), free hour of power, probably a safe bet.

Geektastic:

 

No.

 

Usually the amounts are too small to make the hassle worthwhile IMV.

 

I think that's completely dependent on the providers in your area and whether you have a smart meter. As Tim mentions above, two companies (Flick and Electric Kiwi) are offering highly competitive pricing and a different approach to the standard model, but both require their customers to have smart meters installed.

I've been with Flick since April 2015; as of my last bill, they claim I've saved $484.22 since joining, in comparison to the plan  was on previously.

Personally, I think the "hassle" of switching providers (which was minimal) was totally worth saving this amount.

OP - before signing up to Flick (if you have a smart meter, of course), have a think about whether you're happy to take the risk of some bills being potentially considerably higher than others (and a lot higher than from a standard provider) - while you save a good amount overall, this is the reality of having your bill linked directly to market rates. If you're not keen on that, Electric Kiwi may be a better option (and is more flexible, now they've extended the options of the hour you can pick for 'free' power.

I've been with Flick for a bit over a year, they tell me I've saved $846, around 25% of my power bill. I run the dishwasher on timer overnight, along with the hot water heating, though I have supplementary periods of water heating on some days of high use. Most of our washing and drying is done on the weekend during the day, so the water heating stays on all day. We preheat the house before peak times using a timer. All in all very little effort to save that money, and worth it to me. It's easy to become a bit obsessed with power prices though, but even if you completely ignore peaks and pricing you'll save money in the long term. Pay attention to the alerts and reduce your power usage during them, and avoid running power hungry devices during peak times, you'll make savings.

Anyone living week to week, where one big power bill could be a big problem, probably shouldn't use Flick.

The wife signed up with Pulse Utilities when she recently left Contact Energy (and the staff discount which mead them as cheap as others) We have gas & electricity with them, and get 40 c off per day on the line charges. Great, until they decided if they were to come and read my gas meter, they would also need to read my electricity meter (which is inside, and is a connected smart meter) and because they couldn't they would estimate. 

They then went on to say that even though they would download my reading monthly, they wouldn't use that to base the estimate on, but would take the one true read at switch & use that to estimate (mind boggling that they can create an average daily use from one data point) 

In short, pricing good & transparent, billing system a bit shoddy (they said they can't bill the gas & electricity on different days, and they have a 10 day window either side of the requested read date for the gas when it's actually read)

KrazyKid:

 

Yes I've used this website & switched to Electric Kiwi.
Plenty of others on Flick here at Geekzone.

 

I do find that it pays to put your actual usage and costs into a spreadsheet (or otherwise) to compare as my rates on my bill have differed with their kW charges.
This is normally because I've signed a negotiated deal or contract in are in some none standard rate.

 

I look closely at those who are offering the best savings and have changed after researching those offers in depth.
Note: because Flick has peak and off peak rates comparing there savings to your current offer is hard.

 

Electric kiwi with its free hour of power is easy to estimate savings, but still needs a little more thinking.

 

I've switched to Electric Kiwi let are happy so far. Saved quite a bit as the are the lowest kW charges in my area and then I get my free power as  well.
If you do decide on Electric Kiwi I have a promo code of for Electric Kiwi that if you use you get $50 off your power bill (and so do I). 
PM me if interested 

 

PM sent.

Hmmm,  either I'm doing something wrong with my calculations for what electric kiwi would cost me or they're not actually that cheap.  I'm comparing it to contact who I'm currently with, using my real daily usage for last month, and after I take off the "online ontime" discount that I get through contact they work out slightly cheaper...?

EDIT:  I should say I'm not taking into account the "free hour of power" some of you have mentioned, which I guess could tip the balance in favour of electric kiwi, but I still suspect it would be quite close, to the point where I'm not sure it's worth switching.

I haven't had much luck comparing power prices online. The rates on the companies' websites never match what they quote me when I call to sign up.

jonathan18:

 

Geektastic:

 

No.

 

Usually the amounts are too small to make the hassle worthwhile IMV.

 

 

I think that's completely dependent on the providers in your area and whether you have a smart meter. As Tim mentions above, two companies (Flick and Electric Kiwi) are offering highly competitive pricing and a different approach to the standard model, but both require their customers to have smart meters installed.

 

I've been with Flick since April 2015; as of my last bill, they claim I've saved $484.22 since joining, in comparison to the plan  was on previously.

 

Personally, I think the "hassle" of switching providers (which was minimal) was totally worth saving this amount.

 

OP - before signing up to Flick (if you have a smart meter, of course), have a think about whether you're happy to take the risk of some bills being potentially considerably higher than others (and a lot higher than from a standard provider) - while you save a good amount overall, this is the reality of having your bill linked directly to market rates. If you're not keen on that, Electric Kiwi may be a better option (and is more flexible, now they've extended the options of the hour you can pick for 'free' power.

 

No smart meters - not even cheap overnight power in any useful sense of the concept.

Allegedly Meridian are rolling out smart meters by early 2017 (at least according to their website) but they have never spoken to us or sent us any information regarding that.

We pay our bill through our Farmlands account which gets us another 2% rebate, which on $3,500 a year is better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, as my late father would have said.