Power company recommendations

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dwl

371 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1016000 31-Mar-2014 13:39

SepticSceptic: I'm with Energy Online, but have differing pricing structure - possibly because I'm rural ?

Daily charge: .82 New Daily Charge: 1.8416
Unit Charge: .2287 New unit charge: .2019

My Daily charge has gone up over 100% ! From $24 to $55 per month, without the power usage taken into account !

Had a new smart meter installed, so I suppose they had better cover their costs .. NFSE .

This seems a lot extra. If we assume use at 8000 kWhr/yr (typical transition point from low use), that is roughly 650 kWhr/month which would give roughly:

Old Daily charge: $24 + Old Unit Charge: .2287*650 = $149 for total of $173

New Daily Charge: $55 + New unit charge: .2019*650 = $131 for total of $186

Increase of nearly 8%. If you use more per month, less increase. If you use less, is the low user tariff available?

nigelj

856 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1016054 31-Mar-2014 14:59

nakedmolerat: Powershop does not have daily charge.

The most expensive unit I have paid for powershop is 26 cent unit.

You do get charged a daily charge, but it's not obvious, the per-unit rate is a composite of the per-unit rate that Powershop get charged, and the daily lines rentals. You can see exactly how this is calculated when logged in at https://secure.powershop.co.nz/prices

For those that aren't (yet) customers, an example is (I've reformatted it from the site to make it easier to read here):

Day/Night @ 23.6c/unit (20.3 units) = 23.6c/unit
Daily Charge, $0.3000 / 20.3 = 1.48c/unit
GST = 3.76c/unit

Total = 28.84c/unit

So please lets not say "Powershop does not have daily charge." lets call it what it is, "Powershop recoups the daily charge as part of the per-unit rate".

(sorry, this is just something that has bugged me with Powershop since the start)

Personally, as far as recommending them (OPs original query), I've personally moved them from the 'something different' basket to 'same old, same old' basket with everyone else. At the end of the day, they are pretty much all selling the exact same thing, and the presumed difference is CS, the only time we have a need to deal with Powershop really is during an outage, and now Vector run the old-United Networks network, we don't even need to do that, Vector are usually pretty prompt at updating their outage app.

Lastly, be wary of companies that still have 'current' pricing on their site, last year when Vector started removing metering options (day/night) and hiked up prices, it was amazing the number of power companies that were still listing only 'up to X date' pricing.

SepticSceptic

2186 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1016405 1-Apr-2014 10:21

dwl:
SepticSceptic: I'm with Energy Online, but have differing pricing structure - possibly because I'm rural ?

Daily charge: .82 New Daily Charge: 1.8416
Unit Charge: .2287 New unit charge: .2019

My Daily charge has gone up over 100% ! From $24 to $55 per month, without the power usage taken into account !

Had a new smart meter installed, so I suppose they had better cover their costs .. NFSE .

This seems a lot extra. If we assume use at 8000 kWhr/yr (typical transition point from low use), that is roughly 650 kWhr/month which would give roughly:

Old Daily charge: $24 + Old Unit Charge: .2287*650 = $149 for total of $173

New Daily Charge: $55 + New unit charge: .2019*650 = $131 for total of $186

Increase of nearly 8%. If you use more per month, less increase. If you use less, is the low user tariff available?

I'm right on the cusp of low and standard user - my average usage last year 7988kwh - there is minimal difference at my usage. My monthly power bill fluctuates wildly - $150-$160 during summer, and around $250 in winter, mainly because the water needs to be heated from near 0 degrees - water is fed from an above ground tank.

On the letter advising price changes it mentions:

Daily charge: 0.82 New Daily Charge: 1.8416 - Network Operator Charges 0.85
Unit Charge: .2287 New unit charge: .2019 - Network Operator Charges 0.611

I pay $200 per month, and always end up with several hundred credit during summer ( I think I got up to $900 credit at one stage), and this offsets any nasties during winter.

And always get their 20% prompt payment discount ...

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