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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#3396904 24-Jul-2025 22:45

It took over a week for the switch from Frank energy to occur. Thought it would a lot quicker to be honest. Then a week after I switched power company the new company hiked prices. I wonder what the maximum number of power switches a year is.

farcus

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#3396906 24-Jul-2025 23:46

Decided to pull the plug and switch to Powershop. Put the request through 9:30pm same day (22nd). Business days of 23rd and 24th have both gone and still not yet switched over.

It's been my experience (switch every year or two based on best rates) that most switches take between one and three weeks to complete.
Moving from Frank to Genesis (essentially same company) took 10 business days for me.

mattwnz

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#3396907 24-Jul-2025 23:57

farcus:

Decided to pull the plug and switch to Powershop. Put the request through 9:30pm same day (22nd). Business days of 23rd and 24th have both gone and still not yet switched over.

It's been my experience (switch every year or two based on best rates) that most switches take between one and three weeks to complete.
Moving from Frank to Genesis (essentially same company) took 10 business days for me.

Mine probably took 8 days, so probably 5 business days including weekend. I don't know what causes the delay but IMO it should be faster.

MurrayM

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#3397056 25-Jul-2025 14:11

Yeah I switched from Frank to Genesis and it took over a week. When I queried with with Genesis they said they were waiting for Frank to "release" me.

JayADee

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#3397219 26-Jul-2025 02:58

Took longer than I expected to switch from Frank to Genesis. They said 10 business days, took a day or two longer as I recall.

KiwiSurfer

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#3399096 1-Aug-2025 17:15

KiwiSurfer:

Decided to pull the plug and switch to Powershop. Put the request through 9:30pm same day (22nd). Business days of 23rd and 24th have both gone and still not yet switched over.

Finally got switched over yesterday. Powershop quotes 10 days so I guess they did as promised!

So far so good. One thing I find odd is their prices in the 'shop' -- I am currently on a TOU plan but all the power packs are one price only (no e.g. pack for off-peak and another for peak). How does it work for TOU plans? Are the packs only applied to off-peak or peak powerr? Or does the packs apply to both somehow? Or do the packs bypass TOU prices entirely?

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acetone

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#3400313 6-Aug-2025 12:37

KiwiSurfer:

Finally got switched over yesterday. Powershop quotes 10 days so I guess they did as promised!

So far so good. One thing I find odd is their prices in the 'shop' -- I am currently on a TOU plan but all the power packs are one price only (no e.g. pack for off-peak and another for peak). How does it work for TOU plans? Are the packs only applied to off-peak or peak powerr? Or does the packs apply to both somehow? Or do the packs bypass TOU prices entirely?

Can anyone comment on this off-peak/peak pricing for packs?

KiwiSurfer

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#3400326 6-Aug-2025 13:29

I'm not sure yet.

As an aside, I've done the maths and it looks like (for Vector Central/South prices) you'd need to reduce your peak usage to less than 17% in order for the TOU pricing to be cheaper than flat rate! I wonder how many people are actually better off on TOU as shifting >83% of usage to off-peak is near impossible for our household as we work normal working hours meaning our peak usage is naturallty the 2 hours before we go to work and the 2 hours after we get home. Our household is currently doing around 35-40% of usage at peak hours. I can't see us getting anywhere near the 17% breakeven point.

acetone

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#3400339 6-Aug-2025 13:57

I (AI) just did a quick calculation for me Vector Auckland.
I would need to use approximately 70.65% off-peak electricity in order to make the peak/offpeak plan be cheaper.

I had a quick look at a few days past usage and it looks like we use about 48% of our power during offpeak as it stands right now.
Not sure how much effort or if it would even be possible to move that much of our usage to offpeak.

acetone

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#3400340 6-Aug-2025 14:00

KiwiSurfer:

I'm not sure yet.

As an aside, I've done the maths and it looks like (for Vector Central/South prices) you'd need to reduce your peak usage to less than 17% in order for the TOU pricing to be cheaper than flat rate! I wonder how many people are actually better off on TOU as shifting >83% of usage to off-peak is near impossible for our household as we work normal working hours meaning our peak usage is naturallty the 2 hours before we go to work and the 2 hours after we get home. Our household is currently doing around 35-40% of usage at peak hours. I can't see us getting anywhere near the 17% breakeven point.

Which rates were you using from the table? Standard User, Standard Power Rates ?

KiwiSurfer

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#3400341 6-Aug-2025 14:01

Low user standard rates I think.

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acetone

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#3400353 6-Aug-2025 14:17

I don't know if I am calculating this wrong.
Taking an average daily power usage of 28kwh and shifting power consumptions to off peak by 24% to get to 72% offpeak usage, this would save me around $1 a month.

That does not seem worth the effort.

richms

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#3400383 6-Aug-2025 15:15

acetone:

I don't know if I am calculating this wrong.
Taking an average daily power usage of 28kwh and shifting power consumptions to off peak by 24% to get to 72% offpeak usage, this would save me around $1 a month.

That does not seem worth the effort.

No, that sounds about what I worked out when I did similar figures. Not worth the hassle going off peak. This was to move to an EV plan where it was half or something for those times that I do not use much power and the car takes SFA compared to everything else I use so it was only a small amount that I could shift to offpeak only.

Richard rich.ms

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#3400474 6-Aug-2025 21:31

For whats its worth after half a hour on their chat waiting in a queue (was apparently number 65) the lovely guy who answered the chat was very on to it -- put through the request right away to the team that handles that. Prices were switched over not long after.

It seems the price change takes effect for the currently monthly cycle (no splitting the month or or waiting until the nexr cycle) effecively backdating it. So my Powershop app now shows a lower estimate for the end of month bill and also the daily estimates are lower -- confirming that I am indeed better off on the anytime prices.

A good result all round. Just a shame Powershop doesn't really make this an option during signup or make it easy to self-service change this.

Only downside is that now the app doesn't show the off-peak/on-peak split anymore -- it'd have been good to track this in case we are able to shift our usage somehow. Never mind, I already have a script that can read CSV files and work this out for me.

nickb800

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#3400496 7-Aug-2025 07:48

acetone:

KiwiSurfer:

Finally got switched over yesterday. Powershop quotes 10 days so I guess they did as promised!

So far so good. One thing I find odd is their prices in the 'shop' -- I am currently on a TOU plan but all the power packs are one price only (no e.g. pack for off-peak and another for peak). How does it work for TOU plans? Are the packs only applied to off-peak or peak powerr? Or does the packs apply to both somehow? Or do the packs bypass TOU prices entirely?

Can anyone comment on this off-peak/peak pricing for packs?

Essentially the packs are like buying credit topups for your power account. Some of the standard power ones are $10 for a $10 topup, some of the specials are more like $9 for a $10 topup. At the end of the month, the bill compares all the topups you bought with what you used. What you used is calculated based on how many units you consumed at each tariff (e.g. 100 units peak, 200 unit off peak) multiplied by the standard (not special) rate for that tariff in their price schedule.

The special rates in their pricing schedule are essentially a form of average, based on the maximum possible % discount you could receive if you made us of all of the specials for credit topups (excluding future pack specials). Bearing in mind they are 'house' so they control the game - they adjust the size of packs on offer to match your usage - you might get offered $10 pack for $9, your high usage neighbour might get offered $20 pack for $18 at the same time.

The estimates through the month of $X behind or $Y ahead are overall estimates based on the value of your peak and offpeak usage, but may not be accurate as they sometimes rely on estimated meter readings, and estimates of how much you will use for the rest of the month.

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