Electricity Price Increases

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#3458786 4-Feb-2026 16:48

I agree with all points made - price increases are way too high and electricity will start to become a luxury item. The current setup of the electricity market does not reward Electricity Providers to increase supply or production, but rewards having shortfalls or "just enough" electricity production when peak wholesale prices go through the roof. Profits to shareholders have been prioritised over longer-term capital investment to keep up with demand.

Personally, 2 years ago I realised this, so installed Solar Panels to reduce my reliance on the whims of the electricity companies - don't regret it. Currently my rates are:

Usage: 29c / Kwh - 24 hour
Daily Charge: 69c per day
Buyback rate - 17c / Kwh

Rates are locked in for 5 years, haven't paid our current provider (Meridian) in 18 months.

The play from Mercury for Monthly Pricing - they introduced Monthly Pricing for Business Gas users 12 months ago where the gas price DOES change each month. For 2025 our Church had ended up paying 250% up on 2024 prices and who knows this year!

I really hope a government (any party?) comes up with a good energy strategy to roll out meaningful benefits long-term as the Energy market is a bit borked right now!

mattwnz

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#3458788 4-Feb-2026 16:58

DaMuzzMan67:

I really hope a government (any party?) comes up with a good energy strategy to roll out meaningful benefits long-term as the Energy market is a bit borked right now!

I think the previous government also forced electricity retailers to get rid of prompt payment discounts, which rewarded people that paid on time with some of the providers. Now we all seem to pay the same high prices, whether we pay quickly or not, and it seems it could have been an opportunity for retailers to increase their margins, as the prompt payment discounts wasn't usually factored by consumers when comparing pricing, it was more of a bonus.

But the biggest problem was when the previous government also agreed to phase out the low daily connection for low power users. (eg the price people pay per day just to have the connection without using any power) This greatly affects many single people or elderly couples, who don't use much power, so over this next 5 years their power prices have increased significantly. It was supposed to decrease the amount they paid per unit. But in reality both the daily and unit rate increased, at least it has for me. Another opportunity for retailers to increase their prices.

Government tend to get 'reviews' done, which essentially kicks the can down the road for years, and shifts the problem onto the next government. Just look at the supermarket sector, and they haven't even started with the building materials sector yet. NZs just too small a country for good competition.

dolsen

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#3458848 4-Feb-2026 19:10

mattwnz:

I think the previous government also forced electricity retailers to get rid of prompt payment discounts, which rewarded people that paid on time with some of the providers. Now we all seem to pay the same high prices, whether we pay quickly or not, and it seems it could have been an opportunity for retailers to increase their margins, as the prompt payment discounts wasn't usually factored by consumers when comparing pricing, it was more of a bonus.

Here are three main things that were supposed to save money.

Removal of the prompt payment discount
Removal of win backs - where you could be given a better offer if you were going to switch. Given that almost all of the smaller retailers have gone out of business, can we have this back?
Removal of low usage rates.

Every single one of these "money saving fixes" have resulted in the price I am paying going up. Admitally number 3 was about not subsidizing the lower usage customers by the higher usage customers more than making it cheaper, but it will still result in increased amounts of money being paid for the same electricity (I haven't seen the price paid by large users come down at all). At least the shareholders are doing well, you know, the mom and pop investors. Pity about all of the lower income people who are paying for all of this with no reward.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/116261780/electricity-reforms-will-take-pressure-off-monthly-power-bill-government-promises

Privatisation. Such a stupid, harmful experiment with what used to be our electricity system.

gzt

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#3458862 4-Feb-2026 20:46

mattwnz: I think the previous government also forced electricity retailers to get rid of prompt payment discounts, which rewarded people that paid on time with some of the providers.

Powershop has a solution to that one which is basically their business model. In summary, variable discounts for part or whole pre-payments. Plus, recently I received mail saying I had been with them five years - here's 10% discount on part or full prepayment. I'm aware their model won't suit everyone. In practice it is very flexible.

John19612

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Master Geek
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#3458904 5-Feb-2026 06:53

Very frustrating. The annual April 1st lines charge increases for electricity are yet to come too.

With the latest price increases notified last week, Mercury will have increased my electricity costs by 25% since 1st July last year. Lets not even talk about the gas prices.

There is virtually nothing that you can do either: cut back on usage and the lines charges get you. Solar isn't an option for many people due to cost or poor installation conditions. With gas there's fewer options for switching and hardly any suppliers offer fixed price contracts or incentives any more.

alisam

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#3458920 5-Feb-2026 08:48

I requested the Daily Meter Reads from Mercury which arrived today via email.

Unfortunately, the spreadsheet has a bug in it, because the 'READING' values can be duplicated in the 'CONSUMPTION' values.

The data received was for a year and the two errors were the only ones.

I have reported the issue to Mercury.

(Note: I have 2 electricity meters)

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#3459485 7-Feb-2026 15:25

Was thinking of moving from Mercury to PowerShop, we were with ElectricKiwi before Mercury took over.

Ragnor

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#3459586 7-Feb-2026 22:28

TG09:

Was thinking of moving from Mercury to PowerShop, we were with ElectricKiwi before Mercury took over.

Powershop is the least worst option for us atm, see comments on the last page of this thread for a few fish hooks to be aware of

https://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=48&topicid=319876&page_no=6

Sinuation

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#3459599 8-Feb-2026 01:52

I've been looking for Solar Power Companies and the two that don't suck are Power Edge and Power Shop for my area.

Got Power Shield Locked in for 3 years with Power Edge.

Daily 285c
Night Import: 17.1c
Day Import: 22.4c
Export (24/7) 17.39c.
EA Levy $0.0015 per imported kwh.

Everyone else's rates are bonkers, and many don't even have solar plans.

lowigz

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#3460035 9-Feb-2026 19:00

TG09:

Was thinking of moving from Mercury to PowerShop, we were with ElectricKiwi before Mercury took over.

I've been with them for years, cheapest one I've used so far.. if you buy the packs ahead of time you save a lot more too.

I see today there's an announcment that national want to put a Liquefied natural gas facility in.. and will pay for it by adding another levy on our power bills..

TG09

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#3460095 9-Feb-2026 21:39

lowigz:

TG09:

Was thinking of moving from Mercury to PowerShop, we were with ElectricKiwi before Mercury took over.

I've been with them for years, cheapest one I've used so far.. if you buy the packs ahead of time you save a lot more too.

I see today there's an announcment that national want to put a Liquefied natural gas facility in.. and will pay for it by adding another levy on our power bills..

Just made the switch tonight, thanks for all the info team.

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dolsen

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#3460103 9-Feb-2026 22:47

lowigz:

I see today there's an announcment that national want to put a Liquefied natural gas facility in.. and will pay for it by adding another levy on our power bills..

Yay, more costs. Glad we didn't expand our generation capacity enough but instead returned the excess profits as dividends to the shareholders.

Instead of creating an LNG facility, with the balance of trade / security and environmental impacts of this, what if we reduced the load by subsiding solar installations? This would allow capacity in the hydro systems to be conserved and reduce the need to supplement with other less environmentally friendly sources.

Cost for solar panels has come way down, however, cost reductions don't seem to have flowed through to end users here in NZ (similar to the costs of installing heat pumps in the UK at the moment). Perhaps a bit more competition is needed?

There could be a few issues, ie, matching generation and load. Over in Australia there were restrictions on installing panels in some places as the voltage was getting too high. We don't have the same cooling load to offset the local generation during daytime so there is likely to be a lot of generation being back fed into the grid.

I don't know what impacts that would have on the grid, it was not designed for distributed generation from consumers so unknown what suddenly having all this generation capacity amongst consumers would be. Best case - supply and load would be similar and cancel each other out. There's also the cost of maintenance of the grid not being covered by a fee on usage. The way we charge for this may have to change if this went ahead.

If batteries were also subsidised that would help offset the multiple generation points and allow better use of locally generated power while allowing capacity / reserves to be better utilised. If batteries were a standard feature, allowing remote access to the distributed batteries by the network operator could also allow them to manage demands and allow better response to any faults or issues they have. If one of the transmission lines goes down, get the batteries in the target to export to reduce the chance of brown outs.

Benefits from the above could include

Not relying on a ongoing fuel supply from outside of New Zealand, better from an energy security point of view.
Balance of trade impacts - not buying offshore fuel.
Resilience in the case of a natural disaster with locally generated power.
Reduced transmission loss.
Reduction in emissions

Not sure what the appetite for the above would be. If the subsidy is too much, you could make it a requirement for new buildings to include solar panels to offset their usage in a similar way that water tanks are required in some places at the moment.

michaelmurfy

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#3460104 9-Feb-2026 23:05

dolsen: Yay, more costs. Glad we didn't expand our generation capacity enough but instead returned the excess profits as dividends to the shareholders.

Instead of creating an LNG facility, with the balance of trade / security and environmental impacts of this, what if we reduced the load by subsiding solar installations? This would allow capacity in the hydro systems to be conserved and reduce the need to supplement with other less environmentally friendly sources.

Logic is hard for those currently in charge as they like to think of "now" instead of the future. But I also think if we discuss this more, it'll likely get political.

Also: https://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=184&topicid=310820&page_no=221#3460096

Wouldn't it be nice of those companies using the gas like Methanex (51% gas use) or Fonterra (8% gas use) covered their share of the bill, not the average New Zealander who is already experiencing high power bills?

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mattwnz

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#3460105 9-Feb-2026 23:13

Basically another tax that a government has snuck in, under the guise of calling it a’levy’. People need to hold these politicians to account and the decisions they make at the upcoming election. Previous governments have got us into this situation with the electricity reforms and selling off large parcels of these power companies which has reduced profits going back into investing in the generation and transmission assets

gzt

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#3460116 10-Feb-2026 07:51

dolsen: Instead of creating an LNG facility, with the balance of trade / security and environmental impacts of this, what if we reduced the load by subsiding solar installations? This would allow capacity in the hydro systems to be conserved and reduce the need to supplement with other less environmentally friendly sources.

I think part of the problem for the government was peak load which is currently partly gas generation 'peakers' as I understand it. I assume that is blowing the retail price out. Solar alone doesn't provide peak capacity. It must be combined with battery storage to service peak load.

Likewise I think the LNG terminal is somewhat quick fix with hidden costs.

As far as I can work out grid tied home solar battery installations are more or less at trial stage in NZ. The underinvestment in that totally does not help.

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