Frank and Ecotricity brands to be "merged" into Genesis,

Forums › Off topic › Frank and Ecotricity brands to be "merged" into Genesis,

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#3382861 11-Jun-2025 15:55

rb99:

Also soon to ex Frank(ie). Looked in Powerswitch. Thought ElectricKiwi was (is) a possibility, did their how much will you save thing and the result was 'you're already on a pretty good plan', which I guess means they're more expensive. How much more, no idea.

Needs are simple - no EV's, no solar anything, electric water heating plus the odd heatpump / electric heater.

I went through Electric Kiwi’s how much you save thing and kept changing the dollar amount variable until it said they could do better but didn’t list an annual dollar amount and didn’t say ‘you’re already on a pretty good plan’ That was about $5-10 over my Frank bill which was $141.47.

BUT their disclaimer says ‘Our savings calculation estimate assumes you will save 9.2% on daily power costs during your free Hour of Power; and our estimate of usage.’

Yeah, nah. So far I haven’t found anything better than Genesis.

mattwnz

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#3382863 11-Jun-2025 16:03

JayADee:

rb99:

Also soon to ex Frank(ie). Looked in Powerswitch. Thought ElectricKiwi was (is) a possibility, did their how much will you save thing and the result was 'you're already on a pretty good plan', which I guess means they're more expensive. How much more, no idea.

Needs are simple - no EV's, no solar anything, electric water heating plus the odd heatpump / electric heater.

I went through Electric Kiwi’s how much you save thing and kept changing the dollar amount variable until it said they could do better but didn’t list an annual dollar amount and didn’t say ‘you’re already on a pretty good plan’ That was about $5-10 over my Frank bill.

BUT their disclaimer says ‘Our savings calculation estimate assumes you will save 9.2% on daily power costs during your free Hour of Power; and our estimate of usage.’

Yeah, nah. So far I haven’t found anything better than Genesis.

i have used 50% of my daily power in the free hour. But I think location makes a big difference with pricing

JayADee

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#3382888 11-Jun-2025 16:25

We wouldn’t. We have a pretty good history of ‘steady drip’ kind of usage.

Alphaturkey

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#3382923 11-Jun-2025 17:22

This topic touched a nerve...

Am a refugee from Frank after they dropped LPG bottles. I didn't find better pricing for bottles in the Wellington region and liked the duel fuel discounts that Genesis offered, so phoned Genesis to let the "encouraged" migration happen.

What a mistake that was - when I called, I agreed to a year on contract with Genesis in exchange for fixed price electricity during that term. Recently moved house and that's where the fun began. Genesis refused to migrate my contract to the new address (despite being in the same region) - but good news! They could offer me a new contract with significantly worse pricing. Gave them a "no thanks" - at which point I was told they were charging me a contract break fee. Even after escalating this a bunch I haven't had resolution and lost patience so have logged a DT form and am waiting to hear back on that process.

TL;DR - my personal experience is that if you're considering just letting the forced migration to Genesis happen, it's really worth shopping around.

mattwnz

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#3382938 11-Jun-2025 18:30

That doesn’t sound fair that you can’t move it to another house. Many people rent and sometimes have no option but to move so they would never be able to take up such an offer. But guessing this is in their fine print

acetone

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#3383160 12-Jun-2025 12:17

hsvhel:

Similar, Frank for power only was a great deal for us in the AKL area. Looking at powerswitch, the next 5 "best" offerings are power shop. And those are providing we take advantage of purchasing packets or the like on Tuesdays, mucking around with deals and what not on certain times.

Same situation here. It looks like Power Shop are the next best for me and I will probably give that a try for 12 months.

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richms

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#3383168 12-Jun-2025 12:43

acetone:

Same situation here. It looks like Power Shop are the next best for me and I will probably give that a try for 12 months.

Where can I find the actual packs that they would sell me. All I get from their find a price thing is some rate that says that its assuming that I buy their packs. When I last asked and found what packs people were getting offered they were for joke amounts like a small saving on 20kWh of power. So I have to screw around buying packs to save a dollar on a half days worth of power.

Richard rich.ms

boosacnoodle

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#3383174 12-Jun-2025 13:00

Alphaturkey: I haven't had resolution and lost patience so have logged a DT form and am waiting to hear back on that process.

You don't need to go to the DT - just contact Utilities Disputes. It's free.

acetone

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#3383176 12-Jun-2025 13:07

richms:

acetone:

Same situation here. It looks like Power Shop are the next best for me and I will probably give that a try for 12 months.

Where can I find the actual packs that they would sell me. All I get from their find a price thing is some rate that says that its assuming that I buy their packs. When I last asked and found what packs people were getting offered they were for joke amounts like a small saving on 20kWh of power. So I have to screw around buying packs to save a dollar on a half days worth of power.

No idea, it does seem like a bit of a waste of time.
Anyone on here use Powershop and can confirm how much of a hassle it is to try and play their game?

mattwnz

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#3383260 12-Jun-2025 16:10

boosacnoodle:

Alphaturkey: I haven't had resolution and lost patience so have logged a DT form and am waiting to hear back on that process.

You don't need to go to the DT - just contact Utilities Disputes. It's free.

yes do this. I used it once to get a reply to problem from my power company and it worked.

wellygary

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#3383268 12-Jun-2025 17:10

Utilities Disputes is here, https://www.udl.co.nz/

Despite their ".co" address they are a quasi state agency,

"Utilities Disputes was formerly the Office of the Electricity and Gas Complaints Commissioner"

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Saxphile

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#3383470 13-Jun-2025 08:33

empacher48:

I wonder if Genesis will honour the “guaranteed life of the solar system” rate I’m paying Ecotricity of Lines Charges + 8c per KWh + GST.

I assume you're a solarZero customer? Given Ecotricity was (gradually) bought out by Genesis rather than went out of business, I think Genesis will have to honor existing contracts. From what I have heard, the number of people with the 8c/KWh for life deal is fewer than a couple of thousands.

MurrayM

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#3383482 13-Jun-2025 09:15

acetone:

No idea, it does seem like a bit of a waste of time.
Anyone on here use Powershop and can confirm how much of a hassle it is to try and play their game?

I used to be with Powershop for several years but had to move away from them when we moved house and needed gas (Powershop don't do gas).

I never found buying their discounted packages a problem. They used to offer a monthly package, so once a month my phone would notify me that the package was available and I'd click the Buy button in their app and that was it. Less than a minute and they essentially came to me so I didn't even have to waste time checking for it. They'd also offer future packages (eg in January buy $100 worth of power for $80 to be used in April). I usually bought those too. Their app always showed me exactly where I was at with future purchases and how much I'd used, etc. Buying was always just a click and confirm, super easy.

I also used to get a discount for being with them for several years. They gave a % discount for each year that you were with them, topping out after 4 years I think.

KiwiSurfer

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#3383728 13-Jun-2025 17:29

What makes me wary of Powershop is I have no way of know what prices I'd be paying.

When I put in my address in their website they show me only the Time-Of-Use pricing which is not ideal as unfourtuantely our househouse usage is much more suited to flat-rate pricing. While they do offer flat-rate pricing, to see that their website tells me to look it up in a linked PDF that seem to show generic prices in my lines company's area rather than automatically calculating it for me. Is Powershop that bad at IT that their website can't calculate this automatically -- other retailers can!

It also bugs me they change their prices each month. I wrote my own script to calculate the prices (including different prices depending on the hour and day of the week) for most retailers. Since almost everyone else just updates their prices annually instead of monthly -- PowerShop was the only one I didn't bother to include in my script as it wasn't worth the effort to add the logic for also calculating different prices depending on the month of the year.

But now that Frank is dumping us, I am considering the option of giving Powershop a go for a few months. As I know what prices I'd pay with other retailers I could feed in say 3 months worth of usage data into my script and compare the powershop total for 3 months with what my scriopt says I'd have paid with the traditional retailers. But then again we're just going into the winter months and even Frank's current pricing is decent enough that I might just stay until they shift me over to Gensis and at that point I could just stay and see if their free power hours (or whatever they offer) is enough to offset the extra costs.

kotuku4

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#3383746 13-Jun-2025 18:26

With Ecotricity and have solar. No communication on changes at yet.

I stayed with them as carbon neutral/positive certified. Pricing seemed reasonable. And would not switch to a provider that sells gas.

Will just wait and see what is offered.

Mod Edit [Stu] corrected funny spelling of Ecotricity

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