Flick has been sold to Meridian

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#3373750 16-May-2025 14:27

boosacnoodle:

I'm not sure I'd call Flick an independent, either, given their ownership via. Z Energy

Independent of the gentailers was probably the sentiment.

Im gutted about Flick.

dazzanz

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#3373837 16-May-2025 20:49

michaelmurfy:

A bit of a tip - if you export your yearly data, simplify it slightly by removing columns that don't matter, import it to ChatGPT (I believe using the o4-mini model) and describe what you've imported "This is the power use in kWh for the last year for NZ provider Octopus, each line is 15mins, this meter 55 is showing hot water usage as a controlled load. My rates are these. Compare other rates as I hand them to you showing monthly and yearly cost" it'll compare rates telling you the cheapest.

I used it to compare even on-peak and off-peak plans by giving it the details of those plans and concluded, in my case, I could save over $500/yr by switching to Genesis.

Had a few people do this now and it is great for comparing based on actual usage data.

I did that also and ended up using the AI to create a web page to compare multiple situations, I uploaded it here in case someone else wants to use it, the data is all processed locally so no server involved - https://polite-pixie-3494cd.netlify.app . I've only used it with my csv export from Z so I can't guarantee it works for others. I entered in different offers from about 8 different providers. I'm with Z currently and with 1 year of data they still end up being cheapest by quite a bit as I shift ~50% of my use in to their free hours. Contact 9-12 free or Genesis EV plan (with dual fuel discount) will be my back up choice depending on how things change with the swap to Meridian.

mentalinc

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#3373845 16-May-2025 21:57

Needs pricing pricings, asking for json files to be uploaded.

the power CSV seems to look ok with heatmaps etc

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dazzanz

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#3373850 16-May-2025 22:35

You enter your own pricing in - since each location is different regarding that. A profile would be like “Genesis EV Standard User” or whatever you want. I could upload my json profiles for you to use but then you’d need to at least edit the prices in them.

Ge0rge

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#3373857 17-May-2025 04:43

@dazzanz

Thanks very much for doing this. I'd had a play around with chatgpt but kept running into "you've had your turn today with the processing today, come back tomorrow", so really appreciate you putting this together.

Turns out Contact's free weekends or evenings is still thousands of dollars a year more for me than Octopus's price rise this month. Only the Genesis EV play works better, but by less than $100 dollars. Comparing Octopus FIT at 17c to Genesis 12.5c, overall it's not worth moving.

mentalinc

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#3373860 17-May-2025 07:06

dazzanz:

You enter your own pricing in - since each location is different regarding that. A profile would be like “Genesis EV Standard User” or whatever you want. I could upload my json profiles for you to use but then you’d need to at least edit the prices in them.

Thanks worked it out with the light of day, starting to load up the profiles now manually.

Main tip is to make sure you always use inc. or ex GST pricing!

Most concerning, there is a $2,000 difference between the cheapest and most expensive ($4.2k vs $6.2k per year)

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dazzanz

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#3373921 17-May-2025 11:04

mentalinc:

Main tip is to make sure you always use inc. or ex GST pricing!

Yeah, it seemed easier to just not worry about GST rather than offer some UI for that. Another tip is to consider changing hours when setting up a profile to fit your current use case - eg currently I shift my use to 3-6am because that's free, so for the contact 9-12 free plan, I set those hours up as 3-6 as well as I would just change my EV charging etc to that time.

michaelmurfy

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#3373922 17-May-2025 11:53

@Ge0rge:

Turns out Contact's free weekends or evenings is still thousands of dollars a year more for me than Octopus's price rise this month. Only the Genesis EV play works better, but by less than $100 dollars. Comparing Octopus FIT at 17c to Genesis 12.5c, overall it's not worth moving.

The part that makes the move to Genesis worth it is you can have your hot water on Controlled (so overall, hot water is cheaper) while having day / night rates. Octopus doesn't allow you to do that.

But also their EV plan gives you Chargenet charging at your standard home rate. For me, that's an extra $300 bonus per year depending on how much I travel.

Only problem is the conversion to EV rates took them 3 weeks (it is a meter swap) and in that time I was on a more expensive rate but I just got into a routine of going to the Chargenet charger as it was cheaper than charging at home. Their app is really nice and you do get bonus "power hours" every now and then - I've got 23hrs I am able to use whenever I like so it is handy if you're using a whole lot of power.

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Ge0rge

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#3373925 17-May-2025 12:07

Thanks for that, provides an interesting insight.

I have a Paladin solar diverter fitted, it's very rare that we use any grid power to heat the hot water, so I don't know if moving to controlled hot water would make very much difference to the bill at all.

The power companies definitely make it as hard as possible to compare apples with apples!

Edit to add:

Ignoring any solar FIT, the difference between Octopus new plan, and Genesis EV, based on a year's usage, would be $145.17, Genesis cheaper. The difference in FIT would be $182 more from Octopus- so I'm $36.98 better off over a year to stay with Octopus. We very rarely charge away from home, so I don't think I'd see any benefit from changing providers.

SpartanVXL

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#3374037 17-May-2025 14:34

Funnily enough the fixed Meridian low user plan is $18 cheaper than Flick now for us. I suppose most of that is due to the daily charge.

sleemanj

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#3374219 17-May-2025 22:11

michaelmurfy:

I was once with Octopus Energy but they have now priced themselves out of the market (not their fault)

It's so dependant on location and usage that you can't really say that fairly. For me it's entirely the opposite, Octopus is still the cheapest by more than a hundred bucks (ignoring Powershop)

Calculated exact costs over a 12 month period of real usage (not with AI as some others have done, just some spreadsheet work) - a power hungry relatively flat usage house.

Octopus at current rates, projected to 5223/annum, next cheapest was Flick at 5340, Frank at 5423 with Contact, Pulse, Genesis, Electric Kiwi between 5500 and 6000, and everybody else over 6000.

Now Powershop, based on their idealised numbers, would blow all of these out of the water at something like 4761 after taking into account the 12 free weekends offer or 4997 before, but working out pricing for comparison with Powershop seems like it's a bit iffy so I don't really believe it would come in at that, and it would be a massive messy faff for me to use Powershop for various reasons.

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#3374235 18-May-2025 07:48

Not rushing to a decision, but I'll probably either switch to the Meridian EV plan or return to Powershop.

rhy7s

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#3374327 18-May-2025 14:30

dazzanz:

...

I did that also and ended up using the AI to create a web page to compare multiple situations, I uploaded it here in case someone else wants to use it, the data is all processed locally so no server involved - https://polite-pixie-3494cd.netlify.app .

...

Could you clarify the difference between the default rate and the General rate fields?

And is there any way to account for the solar export channel? Or should I exclude that from the *.csv?

Not sure if I'm building the profile correctly.

Nate001

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#3374351 18-May-2025 17:25

A word of caution, as the creator of the tool said, the results are not guaranteed. Do double check if you can before making any conclusions.

I uploaded my csv, selected a date range and the results do not match my own calculations in excel. Verified with ChatGPT the same data and rates and it matched my excel. In my case the online tool was overstating.

dazzanz

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#3374352 18-May-2025 17:30

Default rate should apply for any time period that doesn’t have a rate set, in your screenshot the 0.27 that shows in the graph is just your time rate figure rounded.

From memory the other rules are :

If there are overlapping time periods then the cheapest applies.
Day specific rates always apply (even if they aren’t cheaper).

What shows in the graphs should be how it is calculated.

I don’t have solar so I have no idea how that looks in an export. If you want to send me a csv with it I can look at including it. You might have to explain how it should work though.

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